Tag Archives: golf architects

April 3, 2010 · 9:14 pm

Masters Field Too Strong for Tiger?

With Masters week looming, people keep asking what question I’ll spring on Tiger Woods at his Monday press conference. They assume, based upon my background as an investigative, that I will throw him hardballs such as, “Who is Janine, and how did she get your signature on a golf flag?”

Their assumptions are wrong. I’m going to throw the spitter. I’m going to ask Tiger the question that my weak-kneed, pusillanimous colleagues won’t touch with a two-foot pole: “Who is the best course designer in this year’s field?”

I expect Tiger to blush and stammer, because nothing embarrasses him more than his oh-for-three record as a golf architect. Three years after he opened Tiger Woods Design in a blind mail drop outside a mall in Windermere, Fla., Woods has yet to cut a ribbon at a course opening. His Al Ruwaya course in Dubai is stalled, his Cliffs at High Carolina course remains hypothetical, and his Mexican clients have put off construction of their Punta Brava seaside course until they get assurances that they can build it with American labor.

Photo of Cassique Golf Club

The 15th at Tom Watson's Cassique Golf Club, Kiawah Island, S.C. (Tom Watson Design)

Should Tiger dare to answer my question, he’ll have to weigh the design credentials of a couple of dozen tournament players — many of whom have actually visited the courses they are credited with designing. He’ll have to give consideration to two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer, who has put his stamp on some 17 courses on three continents. But Langer might not prevail in a design playoff with former Masters champs Raymond Floyd (Turnberry Isle Resort and Club, Aventura, Fla.) and Vijay Singh (The Water at Jumeirah Golf Estates, Dubai). And those two worthies would certainly meet their match in three-time Masters champion Tom Watson, whose Independence course at the Reunion Resort in Orlando, Fla., has drawn categorical praise from GOLF Magazine, Golf Digest and Golfweek. Watson showed what he’s made of when he agreed to renovate the marvelous Ballybunion Old in County Kerry, Ireland — a judicious tweaking that saw Ballybunion fall only three places, to No. 5, in the Top 50.

The best designer to tee it up on Thursday, however, will be yet another two-time Masters champion: Ben Crenshaw. With his acclaimed design partner, Bill Coore, Crenshaw is the only active player with two courses in the Top 50: Sand Hills Golf Club, No. 19, and The Plantation Course, No. 34. And that’s not counting the duo’s renovation work on Prairie Dunes Country Club, No. 6.*

*Is there a correlation between Masters titles and design potential? I think there is. Phil Mickelson, a two-time Masters winner, successfully partnered with Gary Stephens on the Lower Course at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. The salient fact is that Mickelson finished Whisper Rock in 2001, three years before he donned his first green jacket. (That augurs well for non-Masters winner Ernie Els. The Big Easy has co-designed roughly a dozen courses to date, including the Anahita Golf Course on the isle of Mauritius, chosen “Best Golf Development for Europe and Africa” by CNBC International Property Awards.)

Tiger may not see it my way, but what’s he going to do? Change the subject to his marriage?

Top 50 on TV: The Nabisco Championship, the first major of the LPGA season, returns to the Mission Hills Tournament Course, No. 44. I’m very fond of this course, having sharpened my game on its eucalyptus-lined fairways during countless playing lessons with my West Coast swing guru, Rob Stanger. It lacks, I admit, the symbolic depth of Desmond Muirhead’s later work — such as his par-4 “Guernica” hole at the Segovia Golf Club in Chiyoda, Japan, which commemorates Picasso’s famous painting of a town savagely bombed during the Spanish Civil War. (“A dismembered foot and hand surround the green,” Muirhead wrote in his program notes, “a solitary eye glares at you from behind it. The teeing ground is elevated as a symbol of power for the golfer and to help to see clearly the horse’s head around the lake.”) I also think that Mission Hills, situated as it is in the desert, could use a few more water fountains.

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March 25, 2010 · 2:13 pm

The Top 50 Hits the Road

It has been a long winter in Kansas City. Last weekend’s ten-inch snow mocked the arrival of “spring” and prevented me from tuning up on the silky fairways of the Heart of America Golf Academy Par-3 (No. 55). “You need a vacation” said my wife, watching in admiration as I practiced full swings in the TV room, leaving perfect, dollar-bill sized scuff marks on the Persian rug. “I bought you a discount ticket on Southwest Airlines. I packed your suitcase. The car service will be here in ten minutes.”

My vacations, of course, are of the working variety. I am typing this in the media center of the La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., site of this week’s LPGA Tour event, the KIA Classic.* If I can find time between my course-rating activities and my sideline as a free-lance dowser, I will file a game story to Sports Illustrated Golf Plus on Monday morning.

*La Costa’s theater-style press room, with its digital video screens, multi-media work stations and ergonomically-correct executive chairs, is No. 5 in the most recent World Press Facility Ranking Presented by Frito-Lay.

Word of my presence has spread quickly, judging from the press-room buzz about La Costa’s Dick Wilson/Joe Lee-designed composite course. Rolex points leader Ai Miyazato took a bashful stab at course rating yesterday when she was asked to compare La Costa’s tournament track to the more famous South Course at nearby Torrey Pines. “Well, I would say the grass is different,” she said through an interpreter. “I think over here is more thick so that makes it a little less distance, but the greens are much softer over here, so it’s kind of half and half.”

I carry the Top 50 data base on 42 keychain flash drives, so I was able to compare the Japanese star’s impressions with the reports of my course raters. They were all in agreement: “half and half.”

“But Torrey Pines,” Miyazato continued, “was like almost no wind, and it seems like over here is more windy. So La Costa is more difficult.”

I would have to disagree with Ai on that point. The ocean cliffs of Torrey Pines are far more exposed than the condo canyons of La Costa, and the latter is lined with giant gum trees, to which the wind must inevitably stick. Conclusion: Torrey Pines is more difficult.

More difficult, I shouldn’t have to add, does not mean better.

Top 50 on TV: Dick Wilson’s highly-regarded eighteen at Florida’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge (No. 56) is the site of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, a PGA Tour event. Palmer, a course designer himself, likes to tweak Wilson’s old track from time to time. Most of his changes are inconsequential, such as this year’s lengthening of the already-unplayable par-4 18th by ten yards. But Palmer has shown true genius by moving the tournament tee on the par-4 15th to the other side of heavily-trafficked Bay Hill Boulevard, forcing the pros to smack their drives over a pair of neatly-trimmed hedges. As one who has long argued for the inclusion of steeplechase elements in golf design, I can only say, “Well done, Arnie — and pay no attention to the neighsayers.”

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March 9, 2010 · 12:03 am

Oops! Swope In, Brookline Out

No one has found fault, so far, with our recently-updated Top 50. The only quibbles come from the tree-hugging community — effectively dismissed in my last posting — and from an anonymous correspondent who claims he has trouble distinguishing between the late Robert Trent Jones (designer of Valderrama, No. 17, and renovator of Kansas City C.C., No. 50) and his son, Robert Trent Jones Jr. (Poipu Bay, No. 15). Which brings to mind the Joan Rivers acquaintance who didn’t understand the concept of Roman numerals. (“She thought we just fought World War Eleven.”)

Perfect, however, is something we have never claimed to be. Decimal points can be misplaced. Fours can fail to be carried. Checks can — and do — get lost in the mail.* That’s why we constantly re-examine our data, looking for niggling errors, and why we subscribe to a sophisticated “spell-checking program” that makes us look up words that it doesn’t recognize. (See “Valderrama.”) It is Top 50 policy to correct even minor mistakes, there being no better way to preserve confidence in the published ranking.

*Sometimes twice in a row, against all odds.

In that spirit, we submit this clarification of the most recent ranking: No. 45 is Swope Memorial Golf Course, Kansas City, Mo. — not The Country Club of Brookline, Mass., as originally announced.

The elevation of Swope Memorial marks the first time that two A. W. Tillinghast courses from Kansas City have achieved simultaneous rankings. Elegant Kansas City Country Club, the third-oldest country club west of the Mississippi and home course of five-time British Open champion Tom Watson, is better known than its crosstown cousin, but both tracks have pedigrees. KCCC has hosted numerous state, regional and national tournaments, including the inaugural Trans-Mississippi Amateur (1901), won by John Stuart. Hilly Swope Memorial, a municipal course, hosted the 2005 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship and was the PGA’s venue for the 1949 Kansas City Open, won by Jim Ferrier.

The adjustment leaves the highly-regarded Country Club, currently ranked 18th in the U.S. by an anonymous Golf Digest panel, with no ranking at all. To mollify its New England supporters, who relentlessly lobby the Top 50 on behalf of their allegedly underrated courses, we have temporarily moved the Donald Ross-designed 9-hole Tatnuck Country Club course of Worcester, Mass., to No. 68, three rungs above its previous station

We regret, but don’t admit to, the error.

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February 24, 2010 · 3:55 pm

Castle Stuart Soars in World Ranking

The surprise of the latest Top 50 ranking (see sidebar) is the new Castle Stuart Golf Links of Inverness, Scotland, which debuts at No. 10.  A collaborative effort by Philadelphia-based architect Gil Hanse and American developer Mark “Kingsbarns” Parsinen, Castle Stuart opened last July to rave reviews from the dead-tree publications: “Destined to become one of the best courses in the world.” (Links Magazine. … “A Masterpiece!” (Bunkered) … “Effortlessly blends the best elements of St. Andrews and Pebble Beach, Ballybunion and Royal County Down.” (Golf World, U.K.)

Castle Stuart Golf Links

The 11th green at Castle Stuart, Inverness, Scotland

“Yes, it is that good,” wrote the Links reviewer, prolific author and former GOLF Magazine editor, George Peper. “Succinctly put, Castle Stuart will be the most significant British Isles debut since Loch Lomond in 1993. It should be well on its way to the top echelon of the world rankings.” I’m guessing that Peper was paid by Links to write that, but you can’t argue with his call.  Castle Stuart, at No. 10, is the highest-ranked new course in Top 50 history.

My own first impression*, garnered on a bright, windy afternoon in late July, was as positive as Peper’s. Most of the holes have views of the miles-wide Moray Firth, from the Kessock Bridge to the Chanonry Lighthouse, and an improbable number seem to be right on the water. It’s an illusion. When you play the holes that parallel the Firth on the higher ground, it’s like playing the cliffside holes at second-ranked Pebble Beach Golf Links; you don’t see the beach or the lowland duffers, you see only sparkling water and breaching whales. (Or, in this case, breaching Loch Ness Monsters.)

*I have no financial, professional or prurient interest in the Castle Stuart development, but my middle name is Stuart and I claim, by royal birthright, to be the rightful monarch of both Scotland and England via my great-great-great-great-etc.-cousin, Mary Stuart — a.k.a. Mary, Queen of Scots — and the other golfing Stuarts, including James IV of Scotland — “the first golfer known to history” — and James I of England, who is best remembered for appointing the first royal club maker.  For more on the Stuart golfers, see the just-released paperback edition of my book, Ancestral Links: A Golf Obsession Spanning Generations.

I’ll discuss the course layout in later postings, but there’s no reason to withhold the fact that Castle Stuart dominated our “top lavatory view in golf” category, displacing Newport Country Club of Newport, R.I. The shower stalls and urinals on the third floor of Castle Stuart’s art-deco clubhouse provide panoramic views of the course and the shoreline through eye-level, wraparound windows. Dropping to No. 3 is the locker room pissoir at California’s venerable Cypress Point Golf Club (No. 13). “An awning somewhat restricts your view,” reports Sports Illustrated’s Gary Van Sickle, “but you can see a big tree and some of the ocean.”

Equally surprising is the disappearance from the Top 50 of the Jupiter Hills Club of Tequesta, Fla., which held the No. 10 spot now occupied by Castle Stuart. Knowing how computers work, I suspect that the Jupiter Hills listing has somehow been covered up by Castle Stuart, concealing a tenth-place tie.

We’ll get to the bottom of that. In the meantime, Jupiter Hills moves to No. 1 on the Challenged and Disputed List, replacing Liberty National Golf Club of Jersey City, N.J..

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February 16, 2010 · 11:20 pm

New Top 50 Just Around the Corner

The computer room at Catch Basin is operating normally again, the flooding issues having been resolved and the possum captured and relocated to a creek in southern Jackson County, Mo. That leaves only a couple of obstacles to be overcome before we issue the long-awaited Top 50 update. The first is a minor software glitch: incompatibility issues involving Cal Sci’s mainframe computer and our 1970s-issue Bomar Brain. We’re working on that.

The other obstacle is human frailty. It turns out that a previously dependable course rater — a 10-handicap Midwesterner with a degree from a recognized university — submitted corrupted data for a handful of European golf courses. Most of the errors are inconsequential. He reports, for example, that the new Castle Stuart links in Inverness, Scotland, is a 9-hole parkland course, when it is, in fact, an 18-hole linksland course on the Firth of Moray.

One of his findings, however, has distorted the rankings in an unacceptable way. The course in question belongs to the venerable Pau Golf Club of southern France, currently No. 3,676. Opened in 1856, Pau (pronounced “Poh”) is the oldest course on the European mainland. Apparently dazzled by its antiquity, our renegade rater ignored Top 50 protocols and awarded bonus points for “hundreds of beautiful hardwood trees” and “French-speaking clubhouse staff.” We have discovered, however, that he did not make an actual tour of the golf course.

Pau Golf Club

The Pau Golf Club of France has a wash basin fit for a Caesar. (John Garrity)

Is that a problem? Oh, Mama! In the ball-washer section of the evaluation report, our man gave Pau a rare five-brush rating, calling the club’s Roman-era stone wash basin “the best crankless ball-washer in golf and the only orb overhauler worthy of installation in the British Museum.” Unfortunately, he treated the Roman basin as a dedicated ball washer — which it most definitely is not. Pau members use it to clean their clubs, to scrub their shoes and, for all we know, to brush their teeth.

Rest assured that the overreaching course rater faces severe sanctions. But I’ll need an extra week or so to correct Pau’s score and then recalibrate the updated Top 50.*

*To readers who wonder how a mid-ranked European course can impact the Top 50, I will simply point out that our list, unlike other course rating systems, is configured from the bottom up — i.e., we start with the lowest-ranked course (Ft. Meade City Mobile Home Park Golf Course) and work our way up to No. 1 (Askernish Old).

By the way, England’s Joe Lloyd — winner of the 1897 U.S. Open at the Chicago Golf Club — was Pau’s first head pro. (Or, as they say in France, le premier professeur de golf.) Lloyd also spent many summers pro-ing at the beautiful Essex Country Club in Manchester, Mass., where he was succeeded by Donald Ross, creator of Oak Hill (No. 8), Seminole (No. 14) and Pine Needles (No. 30).

Essex, one of many New England clubs yearning to break into the Top 50, will host the 2010 Curtis Cup.

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January 21, 2010 · 6:46 pm

Jack Nicklaus Is 70 at the Turn

I can’t let the day go by without noting that Jack Nicklaus has turned 70 — making it 69 years, exactly, since he hit No. 1 on the Nicklaus Family Top 10. Jack has two mountain courses in my current Top 50 — The TPC at Snoqualmie Ridge, No. 23, and Castle Pines Golf Club, No. 33 — and four flatter and thus easier courses on GOLF Magazine’s Top 100 Courses in the U.S., including PGA Tour venues Muirfield Village (Dublin, Ohio) and Harbour Town Golf Links (Hilton Head, S.C.).

“I’m a very fortunate guy in that golf course design is something that kept me in the game of golf,” Jack told Reuters. “It’s a lasting thing that will remain long after my golf game and lifetime.”

Asked last fall to name his favorite course by a dead architect, Jack went for a Donald Ross masterpiece in the sand hills of North Carolina. “From a design perspective, it’s Pinehurst No. 2. It’s a totally tree-lined course where a tree doesn’t come into play and water hazards are non-existent.” Jack could have added that the Carolina Hotel has a terrific breakfast buffet, but for reasons of his own he chose not to.

Intrigued by Jack’s choice, I’m going to put on my Golf Ghost hat to ask the very late Donald Ross to name his favorite course by a living architect. When I get an answer, I’ll let you know. Until then, here’s my interview with Ross’s ghost that ran in the 2006 SI Golf Plus Masters Preview.


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