Pinehurst Resortposted some photos of Coore & Crenshaw's in-progress design at Pinehurst No. 11, next door to Tom Doak's No. 10 course. The property — which contains remnants of an old sand mine as well as a few abandoned hole corridors from the Pit Golf Links — looks gnarly, knobbly, and unpredictable.
Will this be the most unconventional-looking course Coore & Crenshaw have designed since... I don't know, Talking Stick? We'll see.
One constant, however, is C&C's architectural philosophy. "We don't plan to move a lot of material," Ben Crenshaw said in an interview posted by the resort. "We very much like to let the holes and the land speak for themselves, and do little things."
Pinehurst Resortposted some photos of Coore & Crenshaw's in-progress design at Pinehurst No. 11, next door to Tom Doak's No. 10 course. The property — which contains remnants of an old sand mine as well as a few abandoned hole corridors from the Pit Golf Links — looks gnarly, knobbly, and unpredictable.
Will this be the most unconventional-looking course Coore & Crenshaw have designed since... I don't know, Talking Stick? We'll see.
One constant, however, is C&C's architectural philosophy. "We don't plan to move a lot of material," Ben Crenshaw said in an interview posted by the resort. "We very much like to let the holes and the land speak for themselves, and do little things."
First discussion topic and first post all baked into one! If Harris English is correct and the "new" PGA Tour will have open weeks/gap weeks, why not make Monday Qualifiers matter? Pre-1983 or so, there were only 60 exempt players and the rest had to either finish top-15 the week prior or Monday qualify. It wasn't for one or two spots, it was for many. If the new Tour will have off weeks before and after some, many or all of the PGA Tour events, why not make the week start on Monday with a robust Monday Qualifying event from which 20 or 30 or 40 players qualify? That could be a great kick-off to the week, especially if there isn't a tournament the week before. Thoughts?
First discussion topic and first post all baked into one! If Harris English is correct and the "new" PGA Tour will have open weeks/gap weeks, why not make Monday Qualifiers matter? Pre-1983 or so, there were only 60 exempt players and the rest had to either finish top-15 the week prior or Monday qualify. It wasn't for one or two spots, it was for many. If the new Tour will have off weeks before and after some, many or all of the PGA Tour events, why not make the week start on Monday with a robust Monday Qualifying event from which 20 or 30 or 40 players qualify? That could be a great kick-off to the week, especially if there isn't a tournament the week before. Thoughts?
I've booked a foursome for this Saturday at the par 3 course at Olympic if anyone is interested in joining. I think the guest fee is $45 and if you're a member just shoot me a note and I can update the tee time and add you.
If we get more than four people interested and have another member we can book multiple times.
The weather looks nice and mid-afternoon has been the most pleasant to be outside over the past week or so.
I've booked a foursome for this Saturday at the par 3 course at Olympic if anyone is interested in joining. I think the guest fee is $45 and if you're a member just shoot me a note and I can update the tee time and add you.
If we get more than four people interested and have another member we can book multiple times.
The weather looks nice and mid-afternoon has been the most pleasant to be outside over the past week or so.
This was a pleasant addition to my Wednesday routine last summer but seemed like a short lived experiment. Are there planes (or even an opportunity) to do it again?
This was a pleasant addition to my Wednesday routine last summer but seemed like a short lived experiment. Are there planes (or even an opportunity) to do it again?
Doing a wishlist secret santa with my family this year so I needed to put in some gifts I would wish for. Got me thinking what gift ideas do you have or want as a golf nut / architecture nerd?
Doing a wishlist secret santa with my family this year so I needed to put in some gifts I would wish for. Got me thinking what gift ideas do you have or want as a golf nut / architecture nerd?
Thoroughly enjoyed the SGS nostalgia trip of early life beverage choices. Keystone, Natty, Smirnoff - these are the universal experiences that will bring our society together.
Thoroughly enjoyed the SGS nostalgia trip of early life beverage choices. Keystone, Natty, Smirnoff - these are the universal experiences that will bring our society together.
The family had gone to bed last night, and I found myself with a quiet house. Having not seen much of Royal Melbourne ever, I was excited to turn on the television and watch a bit of the tournament.
what I was treated to was roughly an hour of guys putting. That’s it. Putts. A few bunker shots. Then miraculously there was a digital flyover of a hole after about 45 minutes, and someone hit an approach shot. And then right back to putting.
i’m curious if anyone else has watched the coverage and seen something better. I was disappointed to say the least.
The family had gone to bed last night, and I found myself with a quiet house. Having not seen much of Royal Melbourne ever, I was excited to turn on the television and watch a bit of the tournament.
what I was treated to was roughly an hour of guys putting. That’s it. Putts. A few bunker shots. Then miraculously there was a digital flyover of a hole after about 45 minutes, and someone hit an approach shot. And then right back to putting.
i’m curious if anyone else has watched the coverage and seen something better. I was disappointed to say the least.
40 y/o, married with kids, no interest in fighting!
I'll be in the Sarasota area over the holidays (week in between Christmas and New Years) on a family vacation and I'm looking to sneak out for a round or two. Any recommendations in the area? I'm looking at public courses, but I'm a member at a club in Chicago so any private courses that are accessible with the old pro phone call approach are also a possibility (have had mixed success with that in the past).
I'm looking for a fun and playable vacation round - I don't really care about conditioning or non-golf course amenities. University Park and the Ross course at Bobby Jones were the options that seemed to pop up most via google.
40 y/o, married with kids, no interest in fighting!
I'll be in the Sarasota area over the holidays (week in between Christmas and New Years) on a family vacation and I'm looking to sneak out for a round or two. Any recommendations in the area? I'm looking at public courses, but I'm a member at a club in Chicago so any private courses that are accessible with the old pro phone call approach are also a possibility (have had mixed success with that in the past).
I'm looking for a fun and playable vacation round - I don't really care about conditioning or non-golf course amenities. University Park and the Ross course at Bobby Jones were the options that seemed to pop up most via google.
We pushed out a few forum updates today and hopefully you've already noticed but if you haven't:
We added the comments feed that has historically lived in the Clubhouse to the homepage of the Forum. (note: we have not finished this update for mobile yet but should have it done in the next day or so at the most)
We added a new Sort By options for posts. If you'd like to sort posts by the ones with the most recent comments you can do so by opening the dropdown near the search bar in the forum home page and selecting the option for Recent Activity. This will sort order posts based on the timestamp of their most recent comment (sorted newest to oldest).
We're almost done with Post and Topic following. If you click on a specific post now you'll see a + FOLLOW button in the upper right hand corner of the page. Clicking this will subscribe you to email updates of comments made to that post. Topic following will follow shortly. Additionally, there was a small bug in this feature this morning that should be remedied but if you follow and don't get emails know that we'll squash the bug in short order.
Aside from that, I'll most likely make a change to the Clubhouse later today to make it more focused on members-only articles and course profiles and remove the thread of comments as they now live on the forum home page. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
Cheers!
P.S. We're still working on many other forum enhancements (most notably being able to add images to comments) but as always I'm happy to hear any and all feedback.
We pushed out a few forum updates today and hopefully you've already noticed but if you haven't:
We added the comments feed that has historically lived in the Clubhouse to the homepage of the Forum. (note: we have not finished this update for mobile yet but should have it done in the next day or so at the most)
We added a new Sort By options for posts. If you'd like to sort posts by the ones with the most recent comments you can do so by opening the dropdown near the search bar in the forum home page and selecting the option for Recent Activity. This will sort order posts based on the timestamp of their most recent comment (sorted newest to oldest).
We're almost done with Post and Topic following. If you click on a specific post now you'll see a + FOLLOW button in the upper right hand corner of the page. Clicking this will subscribe you to email updates of comments made to that post. Topic following will follow shortly. Additionally, there was a small bug in this feature this morning that should be remedied but if you follow and don't get emails know that we'll squash the bug in short order.
Aside from that, I'll most likely make a change to the Clubhouse later today to make it more focused on members-only articles and course profiles and remove the thread of comments as they now live on the forum home page. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
Cheers!
P.S. We're still working on many other forum enhancements (most notably being able to add images to comments) but as always I'm happy to hear any and all feedback.
Yesterday, as FEGC member Pearce Barringer noted in his own forum post, TGL announced that architect Gil Hanse had joined the screen-golf league's roster of hole designers. Accompanying the announcement was an awkward, faintly surreal video of a bemused Hanse making a WWE-like entrance into an empty SoFi Center. I'd love to hear the instructions the director of this piece of content gave him before hitting record.
TGL also unveiled one of Hanse's designs, a 590-yard par 5 called "Stone & Steeple." The hole features a few recognizable Hanse motifs: a threatening boundary wall, a lone bunker guarding the second-shot layup zone, and a rambling "Sahara" bunker, strewn with turf islands, cutting across the fairway. The neighboring graveyard even has precedent in Hanse's body of work: in his renovation of Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon, he moved the second green about 50 yards back so that it abutted a 19th-century cemetery.
The most striking aspect of Hanse's design is the double diagonal formed by the two sections of fairway on either side of the Sahara bunker. The basic idea, I gather, is that the farther players hit their drives without carrying the bunker, the more to the right they will end up, and the worse their angle into the green will be. On the other hand, if they want to make the long carry over the bunker on the left side and earn a shorter second shot from a better angle, they will need to bring the wall into play.
Classic strategic-school stuff, in other words. I think I'd enjoy playing this hole, if it were real. And you know what? It basically looks real. And that might be a problem.
So far, the reception of "Stone & Steeple" on social media has been chilly. There seems to be an emerging consensus among TGL viewers that the virtual-hole designs, unconstrained as they are by physical and economic realities, should be crazier, more video game-like, more purely inventive. As my colleague Joseph LaMagna put it on X, "TGL's biggest whiff is designing realistic holes. It makes zero sense to play holes like [Hanse's] in the one arena that's free from practical constraints."
That's probably right. The realism of Hanse's hole registers as a bit unimaginative.
But I have a hard time getting worked up about it because — confession time — I don't really care about TGL. I could barely make it through a single match in the first season. And this is not to say that the product is bad or that the people who enjoy it are rubes. It's just not for me. A huge part of what I love about golf is the relationship between the player, the course, and nature. When you strip away nature — the outdoors, the elements, the land — I lose most of my interest.
But what I'd like to hear Hanse address at some point is why he was interested in TGL. In a press release from the league, he said, "Starting with a relatively blank slate for TGL has been liberating. Designing holes for TGL has given us an opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and step into other aspects of golf course design in the virtual world."
As an architect who typically likes to derive inspiration from physical terrain, why was he compelled by the prospect of a "blank slate"? And in what sense did he stretch beyond his "comfort zone" here?
These are not passive-aggressive questions. I'd genuinely like to hear his answers.
Yesterday, as FEGC member Pearce Barringer noted in his own forum post, TGL announced that architect Gil Hanse had joined the screen-golf league's roster of hole designers. Accompanying the announcement was an awkward, faintly surreal video of a bemused Hanse making a WWE-like entrance into an empty SoFi Center. I'd love to hear the instructions the director of this piece of content gave him before hitting record.
TGL also unveiled one of Hanse's designs, a 590-yard par 5 called "Stone & Steeple." The hole features a few recognizable Hanse motifs: a threatening boundary wall, a lone bunker guarding the second-shot layup zone, and a rambling "Sahara" bunker, strewn with turf islands, cutting across the fairway. The neighboring graveyard even has precedent in Hanse's body of work: in his renovation of Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon, he moved the second green about 50 yards back so that it abutted a 19th-century cemetery.
The most striking aspect of Hanse's design is the double diagonal formed by the two sections of fairway on either side of the Sahara bunker. The basic idea, I gather, is that the farther players hit their drives without carrying the bunker, the more to the right they will end up, and the worse their angle into the green will be. On the other hand, if they want to make the long carry over the bunker on the left side and earn a shorter second shot from a better angle, they will need to bring the wall into play.
Classic strategic-school stuff, in other words. I think I'd enjoy playing this hole, if it were real. And you know what? It basically looks real. And that might be a problem.
So far, the reception of "Stone & Steeple" on social media has been chilly. There seems to be an emerging consensus among TGL viewers that the virtual-hole designs, unconstrained as they are by physical and economic realities, should be crazier, more video game-like, more purely inventive. As my colleague Joseph LaMagna put it on X, "TGL's biggest whiff is designing realistic holes. It makes zero sense to play holes like [Hanse's] in the one arena that's free from practical constraints."
That's probably right. The realism of Hanse's hole registers as a bit unimaginative.
But I have a hard time getting worked up about it because — confession time — I don't really care about TGL. I could barely make it through a single match in the first season. And this is not to say that the product is bad or that the people who enjoy it are rubes. It's just not for me. A huge part of what I love about golf is the relationship between the player, the course, and nature. When you strip away nature — the outdoors, the elements, the land — I lose most of my interest.
But what I'd like to hear Hanse address at some point is why he was interested in TGL. In a press release from the league, he said, "Starting with a relatively blank slate for TGL has been liberating. Designing holes for TGL has given us an opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and step into other aspects of golf course design in the virtual world."
As an architect who typically likes to derive inspiration from physical terrain, why was he compelled by the prospect of a "blank slate"? And in what sense did he stretch beyond his "comfort zone" here?
These are not passive-aggressive questions. I'd genuinely like to hear his answers.
Hey everyone. I thought it would be good to get this going for the NYC area. Always down to get out for a round and occasionally hit the sim in the winter. 31 married w/ no kids
Hey everyone. I thought it would be good to get this going for the NYC area. Always down to get out for a round and occasionally hit the sim in the winter. 31 married w/ no kids
Interested to see what Gil brings to the screen golf. I've only played two of Gil's courses, Sewanee and Mossy Oak, but like everyone, I've seen my fair share on TV and social media. Gil usually brings restraint and simplicity to his courses, with an emphasis on green complexes and their surroundings. Not exactly something you can implement in TGL.
Side note, is this a sign of things to come for a working partnership with the PGA Tour? I'd love to see Gil get his hands on a course or two. I know TGL and the Tour are separate, but in partnership with one another. One can dream.
Interested to see what Gil brings to the screen golf. I've only played two of Gil's courses, Sewanee and Mossy Oak, but like everyone, I've seen my fair share on TV and social media. Gil usually brings restraint and simplicity to his courses, with an emphasis on green complexes and their surroundings. Not exactly something you can implement in TGL.
Side note, is this a sign of things to come for a working partnership with the PGA Tour? I'd love to see Gil get his hands on a course or two. I know TGL and the Tour are separate, but in partnership with one another. One can dream.
I love sand based turf as much as everyone and understand the agronomy benefits. Who doesn't love blowouts and open/isolated spaces. That being said I kind of wish there would be a few new parkland style courses. Ones not suffocated by trees and housing, not restorations doing a bunch of removal, and not perimeter tree lined places where the trees don't really come into play. Would be interesting to see one of todays top teams have to route the land and trees without bulldozing the lot.
Maybe there are such places that have been built and I'm just not aware of them. (I know Sedge was kind of done this way but is still sand with no trees in play)
I love sand based turf as much as everyone and understand the agronomy benefits. Who doesn't love blowouts and open/isolated spaces. That being said I kind of wish there would be a few new parkland style courses. Ones not suffocated by trees and housing, not restorations doing a bunch of removal, and not perimeter tree lined places where the trees don't really come into play. Would be interesting to see one of todays top teams have to route the land and trees without bulldozing the lot.
Maybe there are such places that have been built and I'm just not aware of them. (I know Sedge was kind of done this way but is still sand with no trees in play)
Interesting to hear. There are a few sections of longer, fescue-type grass that might brown out later in the summer, but immediately around the holes it's very monochromatic. It's a little hard to believe that the club's agronomy team will allow nature to take over pretty much anywhere on the property. That's just not their ethos. So even if they do develop a few alternative grass types in the rough, I would expect the results still to feel very... curated.
I must admit that I was obsessing over the green's construction (surprisingly built up!) rather than contemplating its place in history when we were finishing out on 11. But I believe there's a Bobby Jones plaque by the tee.
I was told last year that the club is experimenting with a variety of grass types in the rough. The goal was to present a less uniform color/texture in the rough, but more importantly to create varied lies that are difficult to predict. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but it would make sense and align with some of Garrett's critiques about naturalized and varied rough. And also align with Andy's take that unpredictability is one of the best ways to challenge elite ams and pros
Me and friend looking into traveling over to Colorado/Nebraska from Ireland next year for a golf trip. Looking at early September hopefully it might line up with a FEGC event 🙏🏻
KVV, any precedent for athletes having equity in the league they are playing in? Seems like that could get messy even if it actually becomes a viable product.
Thanks for writing this! I decided to take a 24 hour trip to DC from NC a few months ago to see East Potomac and I am so glad I did. If people were actually being genuine when they talk about wanting to "grow the game" then the golf world would invest in more facilities like this.
I had the chance to play Ballybunion way back in the summer of 2004. We made the trek only the be greeted with the worst weather I have ever golfed in. Steady rain and strong wind for at least half of the round made it both difficult and amusing. It's a fantastic treat to play and I have never seen anything like it to this day. The scale of the land is truly wild in person. I loved the variety of holes, varying undulations, and many visits back and forth from the coastline.
Great review of the top public course in the DelMarVa seashore area in my opinion. Rum Pointe was always first on the list when my old golf trip group would set up our annual early season visit to Ocean City. Thanks for sharing your personal memories of this memorable and affordable track.
As a resident of Bethany Beach, DE, I can say that Rum Pointe is the best public access course at the beach. Happy it means this much to you Kevin! Next time you are at the beach, let me know and I'll take you out to play my club - Cripple Creek Golf & Country Club - just outside of Bethany.
Design Notebook Golf Course Architect Sam Cooper Interview
Jul 30
I really liked that last question and last response. It helped me not to just see a name and think it must be a great course, but to realize that even the greats created duds. His analogy with the Beatles was spot on. Awesome article!
Thanks for reading Eddie. Please review our “how we rate courses” article. 1 Egg is very high honors and just my personal opinion.
I visited the course multiple times over two years,
spent many hours with the club historian and Tom Doak and produced a 20 minute video highlighting Crooked Stick’s history and its significance to Pete and Alice and their architecture. I’d like to think I fully understand the profound significance this course meant to them and golf course architecture broadly.
That being said, I prefer to focus on the golf course itself with my rating rather than putting too much stock in historical significance and its wider influences. I’ve read a lot of what Doak has written about Crooked Stick over the years and most of it refers to previous iterations of the course. During a recorded conversation with Tom he said he thinks that the course from the 1980s was more compelling than it is today because Pete’s flair has been subdued over the years to accommodate the modern game and high level championships.
I travel to Indiana for work monthly, and I absolutely love the Warren Course. Best $65-75 for a round of golf thats an easy walk. It’s great having projects in Lafayette, South Bend and SW Michigan, the travel benefits when traveling with clubs is well worth the time on the road.
I know I’m late to the party here, but I’m a Duke member, and I live 20 minutes from all three of the RDU University courses. Lonnie is currently closed, replacing the bent grass greens with Bermuda. Finley has been closed for the last 3-4 weeks for summer maintenance and reopening in the next week to 10 days. The new layout is fun but the first hole is a par 3, and there are 2 par 3 holes in the first three holes. Really awkward start, but it starts to flow much better after the 4th hole.
Duke is a great classic RTJ layout that doesn’t fit any part of my game, but my HC travels well.
