A Favorable Lie: Courses with Rooms

rooms

Terry Lundgren, retired Executive Chairman of Macy’s Inc., estimates he has stayed in the Ben Hogan Room at Riviera Country Club about 60 times. A member of the Pacific Palisades, Calif., club for 10 years, the former executive has roots in Southern California and used to visit Los Angeles regularly on business. Instead of staying […]

Coore & Crenshaw’s 5 Best Public Golf Courses

At Trinity Forest Golf Club, just nine miles southeast of downtown Dallas and venue for the AT&T Byron Nelson Classic, PGA Tour players got a dose of Golden Age-style course architecture. Used to more predictable, formulaic designs where stock shots and a fixed method get the job done, competitors were asked to think about lines, […]

Hot Takes from Michael Clayton

His has become one of the most insightful, forthright, and provocative voices in the game. When former tour pro Mike Clayton—now a highly regarded course architect with the firm Ogilvy Clayton Cocking and Mead (OCCM)—talks about the issues confronting golf today, you simply turn on the voice recorder, give him some cues, and sit back. […]

Akbar Chisti: The Man Behind Seamus Golf

akbar

In August 2014, Akbar Chisti drove from Portland, Ore., to the PGA Show in Las Vegas to meet with the USGA’s head buyer, Mary Lopuszynski. Chisti went to discuss what “unique and compelling” piece Seamus Golf might create for the U.S. Open merchandise tent. It was a special moment for the company Chisti had founded in […]

Mike Nuzzo Builds Three Very Different Nines at Grand Oak Reserve

mike nuzzo

From aerospace engineer to golf course architect, Mike Nuzzo is helping foster the reemergence of nine-hole courses across the country. The disparate and implausible elements of Mike Nuzzo’s professional background are utterly mystifying. After graduating from Boston University in 1990 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, the New Jersey native worked for a medical equipment […]

5 Questions with Golf Course Architect Brandon Johnson

Brandon Johnson earned a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard in 1999, before becoming Manager of Design for The First Tee, where he oversaw design and construction of 250 facilities. In 2006, he joined Arnold Palmer’s course design firm and, seven years later, was made a Senior Architect and Vice President of the company. […]

5 Small Golf Brands That You Need to Know

small brand

Big brands budget big bucks to ensure media saturation. Lost sometimes are smaller brands which don’t have much spending power, but which still create excellent products. Here are five brands you may not be aware of, but should be. Carbon Putters Colorado’s Carbon Putters has enjoyed critical acclaim without hitting the big time… yet. The […]

Golf, Wine, and Safari in South Africa

By Tony Dear   South Africa’s many attractions are hardly unknown. But having just spent three unforgettable weeks there visiting Cape Town, drinking a lot of incredible wine, watching elephants and lions in the wild, and playing a few really good golf courses, I’d estimate it gets about one-fifth the coverage it deserves. Getting there […]

Does the Golf Course Architect Matter?

Golf Course Architect - Spanish Oaks - Bobby Weed

Ted Vassallo, a retired civil engineer from Vermont, says the identity of the golf course architect wasn’t a major factor when he and wife Jan were deciding which of the seven communities at The Cliffs to move into. “We originally intended building a house up in the mountains at Glassy, which has a Tom Jackson […]