Golf’s Greatest Bunkers
During the 1980s and early ’90s, this fledgling golf addict would watch the European Open from the Old Course at Sunningdale Golf Club outside London and enjoy the ever-entertaining Peter Alliss mixing witty, playfully acerbic dialogue about the players with keen insights about the course. One observation in particular has remained with me these past […]
Tom Doak is Building His First Course in Ireland
By Tony Dear In 1993, Tom Doak made a handshake agreement with the owner of Old Head in County Cork, Ireland, to design 18 holes but, for one reason or another, the plan fell apart. A decade or so later, another opportunity arose at Castlegregory, 10 miles west of Tralee on the beautiful […]
Creating Alternatives to Original Golf Templates
The word ‘template’ is, of course, part of modern-day golf architecture speak. It’s not quite clear when the term was first used to describe certain hole designs, but we do know it has its origin in golf pioneer C.B. Macdonald’s trips to Britain and France between 1902 and 1906 when he sought to identify the […]
Golf’s Short Course Craze
By Tony Dear Golf’s short course movement is in full swing. Whether it’s a layout with fewer than 18 holes, or one consisting solely of par threes, truncated golf is appearing with increasing regularity as America discovers how much fun it can be, how great it is for introducing youth to the game, how […]
Landmand Golf Club: A New King-Collins Design
“The terrain is so bold, wild at times,” Rob Collins says of the site at Landmand Golf Club in northeast Nebraska where he and design partner Tad King have routed 18 holes that are set to open in 2021. “It reminds me of Ireland with 100-foot dunes everywhere you look.” King and Collins’s much-anticipated […]
A Mike Strantz Journey
A four-minute YouTube video tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Mike Strantz and his approach to building golf courses. He appears with design partner, and former PGA Tour player, Forrest Fezler during their 2002 renovation of Silver Creek Valley Country Club in San Jose, Calif. Over images of how he took […]
What to do with the Golf Hall of Fame
Before one starts an article about the status of the World Golf Hall of Fame, how it’s perceived inside and outside the game, the merits or defects of its inclusion criteria, and the worthiness of its inductees, it’s important to recognize the contribution to the game every one of its members has made. From leading […]
Adare Manor: Ready for a Fight
By Tony Dear It was suggested that when Richard Finch stumbled backwards into the River Maigue on the 72nd hole of the 2008 Irish Open at Golf Course at Adare Manor, it helped put the charming village of Adare on the map. In reality, Áth Dara had been on the map for centuries, especially since […]
Q&A with Sweetens Cove Architect Rob Collins
By Tony Dear Over the last couple of years, Rob Collins has become one of the best-known golf course architects in the country basically on the strength of nine holes. Those holes at Sweetens Cove Golf Club in South Pittsburg, Tenn. opened in late 2014, and since then they’ve attracted a huge following of golfers […]
Who Really Designed Bethpage Black?
By Tony Dear A while ago, we asked who deserved the credit for how a golf course turns out—designer, design associate, construction foreman, re-designer, restorer, renovator, shaper, superintendent, some of the above, or all of them. It’s an especially pertinent subject at Bethpage Black as a question mark hangs over the identity of the […]
