Is Tom Doak Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee?

Readers of Mark Twain’s classic novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court will note many remarkable similarities between Twain’s resourceful, noble, and hilarious protagonist Hank Morgan who forces the 19th century on the 6th and the equally ahead-of-his-time, progressive thinking, paradigm-shifting Tom Doak.

When you meet Doak, you are struck by the same four attributes which embody Twain’s Connecticut Yankee: his candid simplicity, his encyclopaedic knowledge of his topic, the homespun pleasantness of his company, and his penchant for bluntly speaking his mind. (“More people should try it” he laments briskly). Doak shares this character trait with another hip-shooter, the great writer Hunter S. Thompson (and with your author) – he cannot help but tell the truth, even if it creates a bit of a stir.

Like Hank Morgan, Doak is remarkably ahead of the industry, shifting its models and solidifying his philosophy with each passing course that he builds. Sure, Morgan introduced technology of the future into the past while Doak resurrects the past and spit-shines it for use in the present, but when you look more deeply, the similarities between the two shine through. Like Morgan, he saw a better world was possible and he fought tirelessly for it. That’s Doak’s greatest legacy to us; not only great courses, but the underlying philosophy which redefines what a great course is while also bestowing the feel of the Old World from which the game originally sprung.

Doak even had euphemistic “fights with crowbars” in his youth as Morgan did, (that’s how he came to be in the 6th century. “Hercules” smacked him upside the head with a croewbar.) It earned Doak the moniker “Le Infante Terrible,” but once Pete Dye, the Sir Launcelot of golf course architects retires, Doak, as Sir Galahad shall take over golf design world’s post of Siege Perilous. Certainly his host of followers are indeed convinced of his virtue and are as rabid as any fans of any sports franchise.

Even his gibberish enraptures those hanging on every word. Morgan achieved “miracles” while uttering ridiculous “magic words” like “Constantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifenmachersgesellschafft!” (that’s “THE BAGPIPE MANUFACTURERS COMPANY OF CONSTANTINOPLE!” spoken in German). Similarly, Doak makes us scratch our heads working out mutterings like “Solving the paradox of proportionality lies at the core of golf course architecture.” That one set off every dork alarm in Michigan. When I understand that one fully, I’ll break it down for you, but you see how the Cornell education comes out in strange intellectual bursts.

Yet Doak has two critical differences from Twain’s Morgan. Doak has learned the wisdom not to challenge the industry to its face with unbridled hubris. While Morgan challenged all the knights to battles face to face, Doak simply lets his courses find their own level of acclaim. Moreover, Doak does not act rashly or capriciously as Morgan did. Gone is the time where Doak will have a devil-may-care attitude toward competitors and detractors. Perhaps this came from raising his family. When a person has children, when they pick a fight, they spill the blood of their dependants as well as their own. Sure, there are still occasions where Doak’s prickly side comes out, but the frequency and severity of his earlier dustups is now a thing if the past.

Perspicacity and bluntness – that’s Doak. Erudition, yet earthiness (literally and figuratively) – that’s Doak too. He’s cannot escape his Cornell education and his U.K. scholarship, but he’s also Connecticut and Michigan. He’s a man of the dirt, yet remarkably urban. The man leads the vanguard of our great new movement in golf architecture, yet relies completely on his team. His love/hate relationship with fame successfully tempers the heady wine of his global popularity and acclaim. Creative and puckish, yet reserved and respectful of tradition; driven and devoted Doak sees a better golf world and drives us there fearlessly.

I was once told by someone that the ultimate measure of a person’s greatness is whether they created at least one indisputable masterpiece once on their lifetime. Doak has three to date and the tally keeps rising. (That’s Pacific Dunes, Ballyneal, and Barnbougle Dunes for those of you scoring at home). Luckily he’s just hitting his prime. As he grows older, wiser and more refined, we’ll reap the benefits, one great course after another.