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)
Indiana college golf course tour is best budget golf trip in country: Warren + Pfau + Both Purdue courses. If could a Culver invite as well then it can't be beat.
Renovated Yale is awesome by the way, just played on friday. Greens massively expanded. 10 is even more diabolical now. I think the price point might keep some away and probably some additional growing needed, but I'd get there ASAP if anywhere close.
Pretty sure he has offered, but they'd lose valuable football parking while it was being done - feels like they should be penalized for parking cars on a Mackenzie course in college course rankings
As a clemson alum, Walker is fun and is indeed one of the best publics in the area, but sadly that says more about the area than Walker. Many great afternoons spent there!
Kampen for Purdue, I assume, or did you get the renovated Ackerman-Allen course (which has been redone since my days there, which is why I am a bit curious)
2026 Pga Championship Aronimink Aaron Rai Jon Rahm
May 18
"Bring dispersion patterns back in line with the game board on which the sport is played."
This is a very succinct way to explain the need for a roll back.
2026 Pga Championship Aronimink Aaron Rai Jon Rahm
May 18
Aronimink was fabulous! Those greens are all-world. If all-world golfers can’t putt them well, then so be it! The golf course has to win sometimes also, you know. And this was one of those times. All the big names faded away and we got the best player this week. Just like when Corey Pavin won at Shinny and Rich Beem and KJ Choi and Steve Jones and Danny Willett and Shaun Micheel and all the other one time major winners.
Stop whining about this tournament. It was exciting as hell there until Rai put it away at the end.
And Rex Hoggard is an idiot, pining for more 8000 yard courses for bomb-and-gouge fests. That guy is clueless and I don’t know how he keeps a job with the comments he made this morning on his podcast.
Not the most walker-friendly course ironically for being named The Walker Course, but Clemson's home track is my personal favorite that I've gotten to thus far. Lots of fun shots out there. One of the best public courses for anyone heading near the Greenville-Spartanburg area.
I went on Sunday and spent a good chunk of the day at 10 grandstand. So few approach shots close to the pin (Rosey's was great but it was his third after an errant drive). Tons of guys off the green in the lower section to the right and several uphill chips/putts that came right back. Lots of pars. And a lot of interference from 8 green with tee shots from 8 hitting the green and rolling off, sometimes onto 10 green and then needing relief, which slowed things down a lot. P Reed hit the stick on 8 and then it bounced and rolled almost onto 10 green. It was a good spot to camp out for much of the day but just really not a lot of excitement or fireworks. Underwhelmed was probably the right word. Just a lot of up-and-downs.
After Ludwig/Rai came through at 10 I started walking the back nine. I watched his laser-like tee shot on 15 and even at that point on the grounds it still felt like maybe someone behind would step it up and challenge him. I think if it had been 1-2 guys battling down the stretch and he out-dueled them it would have felt different. Nobody else really got out of neutral, and all credit to Rai for just really outclassing everyone else on the back nine. He just locked in and went out and got it when no one else did. I'm sure the energy on the course really changed when he rolled in the putt on 17, but I was in the merch tent at that point and missed it.
Mixed feelings overall, but largely positive. The challenging setup flummoxed many of the players, which was interesting for a while, but didn't seem like it produced a lot of riveting "moments" for much of Sunday. It was high-intensity, but somehow not high-drama?
Aronimink was beautiful. Philly sports fans....yeesh.
Mackenzie drew the plans for both Scarlet & Gray. Ohio State fired Perry Maxwell early on during the build and then took liberties with what they put in the ground.
Nicklaus finished the hatchet job by turning Scarlet’s #4 into a strong Design Disaster candidate.
As good as UM is now, it could be even better if they scrubbed Arthur Hills handiwork away, recaptured MacKenzie’s full green pads, and felled a few trees that intrude on the playing corridors.
As an Ann Arbor native, I'm a big fan of the UofM Course. Also, take this with a grain of salt from a Michigan fan; I believe Andy said on one of the pods that Alister Mackenzie did not design the OSU Scarlet Course. Definitely call me out if I'm wrong but I vaguely remember him saying something along those lines.
Were there other golf publications that gave Rai contending the kind of consideration and coverage you believe he merited?
I’m sure lots of golf media companies now owe him his due. Well played and well deserved to him. He earned it and his life will never be the same.
These out of the blue winners usually make a ton more sense with the advantage of hindsight.
Fair enough - not that a 2 Egg rating is a slight or anything, just wondering if you all reevaluated courses since this review is a couple years old. Lawsonia is a gem either way!
