In 2018, the PGA of America will hold the 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive C.C. in St. Louis – home of Trinity Bantam Jay Williamson as well as several prominent Senior Tour members such as Jay Haas and Hale Irwin. It will be the third time the club will host the event; Gary Player won the 1965 PGA Championship, and Nick Price won his first PGA Championship...
2011 Atlanta Athletic Club, (Highlands Course), Johns Creek, GA 2012 Kiawah Island, (Ocean Course), Kiawah Island, SC 2013 Oak Hill Country Club, (East), Pittsford, NY (Rochester) 2014 Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, KY 2015 Whistling Straits, (Straits Course), Kohler, WI 2016 Baltusrol Golf Club, (Lower), Springfield, NJ 2017 Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, NC 2018...
As always, Ran Morrissett has an insightful and probative interview with an outstanding golf course architect. This month, Ran sits down with Texas’s Jeff Brauer: Dallas Stars fan, bon vivant, and the trailblazing golf course architect that gave us Giant’s Ridge in Minnesota and Cowboys Golf Club in Dallas. From the interview: “7. You have a natural...
There is great news coming out of the Sand Hills region today: Ballyneal, winner of the Best New Course in 2006 and an instant classic is getting a baby brother. According to Cybergolf: Bruce Hepner, lead associate of Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design for the original Ballyneal course, will design the new course. Construction will begin this year...
THE FOX CLUB Are there any more buoyant hearts in the World than the Irish? Their greatest export is an unquenchable good cheer which brightens and enriches the lives of everyone they meet. That alone would be a solid reason to consider joining the Fox Club. (After all, in any club, you have to get along with or at least tolerate the idiosyncrasies of the other...
Cybergolf reports that Jim Urbina, Tom Doak’s long-time chief lieutenant, will be restoring one of Tillinghast’s courses 30 minutes north of New York City. What was once called Dellwood Country Club will now be known as Paramount Country Club. According to the article: “Golf course architect Jim Urbina, who won raves for his role in creating Old...
Golf architecture expert Mark Chalfant has started a Devereux Emmet fan club/website/blog. The address is www.devereuxemmetsociety.blogspot.com Mark is a solid historian and a nice guy, so we wish him all the best. Stop by and give him a read, he’s informative and interesting. Emmet, as you know designed many great courses including Leatherstocking Golf Club...
How many times have we seen country clubs – even prominent, historic, and celebrated ones – go temporarily insane and, when seeking to restore or redesign their golf course, choose a golf architect unwisely? It usually turns out to be an expensive panic and a grim disappointment. Solid golf architecture must be the first and foremost consideration: not...
The most grisly shuck in golf came to a delicious end today when PGA Tour officials essentially told the odious Turning Stone Casino that they are not good enough to host their own stand-alone tournament during the regular golf season. After failing to draw a major championship to their over-priced, under-designed chump-trap, and after failing to convince the Tour...
ON THE COURSE “Langford wasn’t obsessed with length, especially off the tee – I don’t think there is truly a “forced” carry off the tee on a Langford course,” notes Phil McDade. “The tee shot merely introduces you to the hole. Yes, you can choose either the tiger’s line off the tee or tack your way around the golf...
Thankfully, the Links Course survived its early, troubled history largely intact. I say thankfully because, the design of the course closely resembles the work of perhaps the most revered and important bloodline in golf architecture: C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor, and Charles Banks. Several startling coincidences lead many golf architects and architecture experts to...
We have a saying in New York City: Anyone can find a great $60 steak, but the real trick is to find the great $20 steak. The same is true of golf. Anyone with money can play an overpriced, under-designed resort course that caters to posers impressed by brand names and slick marketing. Also, anyone can plunk down $50 at an awful municipal dog track that a city...
Please forgive the radio silence the past few days, but we have had two weddings in the Flemma family this week! Our delightful and effervescent Julie married Rob Humphries of Connecticut on Tuesday, and then our beautiful, charming Anne Marie married Charles Gaetano II of Utica, NY yesterday. Honeymoons in Italy: surprise surprise! We couldn’t be happier for...
Beloved, admired, and an inspiration to everyone around him, the death of rising star golf architect Mike Strantz at age 51 was a crushing loss to all of golf, not just his many friends, fans, and family. Oral cancer claimed his life just as he was reaching virtuoso heights in his profession. Time and again he worked in the shadow of greatness and designed a world...
I’m thrilled to announce I’ll have not one, but two chapters in a new book by Paul Daley and Full Swing Publishing called Golf Course Architecture Vol. 6. I’ll be writing chapters on Bulls Bay and Lawsonia. PAul said it was okay to run some teasers, so here is the first: TITLEIST – THE NUMBER ONE BULL IN GOLF! In the zaniest, most madcap...