List as little or as many golf course architects as you’d like (living and/or deceased), and write what you think is their biggest contribution to golf course architecture. It could be philosophy, a design element, their impact, whatever.

Anyone notice the odd hue of the greens at the Siam CC for this week's LPGA event? Has anyone seen anything about it? I assume with the climate there they are some type of hybrid bermudagrass. If so, I've never seen greens look quite like this on a televised golf event.

Anyone heard any intel?

George Williams, GCA

Today, the Pebble Beach Company offered insights into Gil Hanse's upcoming transformation of the Links at Spanish Bay. This project has had, by the standards of the 2020s, an extended gestation period: PBC announced that it had hired Hanse back in 2023, committed to a timeline last year, and is now revealing details of Hanse's plan. The work will begin on March 18 of this year, and the reimagined course is scheduled to open in April 2027, two months before Pebble Beach Golf Links hosts the U.S. Open.

Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., with consultation by Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum, the Links at Spanish Bay opened in 1987 and has long lagged behind PBC's other two seaside golf properties, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, in both regard and profitability.

Here, quoted from the press release, are a handful of changes that Hanse intends to make:

• Relocating several green sites, including the current 14th and 18th holes, creating room for an entirely new par 3* that will replace the current 13th hole
• Expanding putting greens by ~40% and completely resurfacing to provide smoother, more receptive targets and variety for hole locations
• Replacing the rough in the green surrounds with low-cut turf to offer more recovery options
• Widening fairways by ~30%, repositioning fairway bunkers, and adjusting contours to make the playing corridors more forgiving and strategic
• Repositioning and redesigning tee complexes to open sight lines and options, reduce forced carries, and elicit excitement at each hole....
• Redesigning the cart path system to better blend into the landscape

(*The new par 3 will play to the existing 14th green site, which looks out on Asilomar State Beach.)

Hanse's primary intention, it seems to me, is to bring Spanish Bay out of the 1980s. Like many courses built in that decade, it was harder than it needed to be, especially for everyday resort play, and it failed to blend in with the surrounding landscape, with its push-up greens and cookie-cutter containment mounding. Most of Hanse's planned changes seem aimed at enhancing playability and settling the course into the terrain.

As Derek Duncan's Golf Digest piece from earlier today suggests, however, there's only so much Hanse can do. I'm sure the architect would like to color outside the lines of Jones's original design a bit more, but a wholesale rerouting would be unlikely to pass regulatory muster. Also, the realities of mainstream resort golf will always limit the degree to which the Links at Spanish Bay can authentically live up to its name. The rye grass and cart paths must stay.

Nonetheless, this project is obviously a step in the right direction. Let's hope it opens some eyes as to what might be achievable at the company's flagship property.

I'm trying to find a course to complete my trip to GA/FL, between Atlanta and the Florida line would be ideal, coming from Ft Myers either the night before or the morning of. Let me know where I should play, and if it's possible to even get on anywhere decent. Thanks

I think I remember Andy talking about a “golf architect family tree” on a podcast or video at one point. As someone who is a visual learner, I always thought that would be a really nice visual to have, so I did some quick searching online but couldn’t find anything.

I tried to make my own today, but got stressed that the direction I was going wasn’t correct/could be organized in a much better way. So before I go crazy I wanted to ask if anyone knows if a visual like this already exist? And if not, would anyone be willing to help me think through a more accurate or better way to organize this?

Candyroot Lodge, an under-construction golf resort an hour outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced the name of its first course: Milkstone.

"Milkstone at Candyroot."

Maybe a little much?

The important thing, of course, is that the golf course turns out well. With Mike Koprowski (of Broomsedge fame) at the wheel, I think there's a good chance of that happening. Check out his plan for the course:

Friend of the Program Geoff Shackelford has an excellent piece for his Substack newsletter The Quadrilateral about Pebble Beach's renovated 10th green (and about the history of the hole in general). It appears that, for the first time in decades, Pebble Beach has carried out a project that might accurately be called a restoration! Now if only the fairway were restored to its late-1920s width...

The latest Coore & Crenshaw design, Anson Point, opened earlier this week in the South Carolina residential community Palmetto Bluff. The course joins Palmetto Bluff's two other golf offerings, May River Golf Club (an 18-hole course designed by Jack Nicklaus in 2005) and Crossroads (a reversible nine-holer built by Tad King and Rob Collins in 2024). Here's a promotional video on the course featuring some commentary from the design team, and here's a flyover of each hole.

Anson Point is about 45 minutes from another Lowcountry Coore & Crenshaw joint, Chechessee Creek Club, and an hour from Harbour Town Golf Links.

Early images suggest that, like Chechessee Creek, Anson Point will be low-profile and elegant, with smallish, subtly contoured greens. This will set the course sharply apart from Crossroads, which is quite boldly shaped.

Pebble is scheduled to host the U.S. Open four times between 2027 and 2044. It's the shortest course on the PGA Tour, with insanely small greens (3,500 square feet) that have been systematically de-sloped and de-contoured so they can stimp at 14. Its bunkers frame resort-width fairways, and float 15 yards into the rough when the fairways are slimmed. A restoration or renovation is not financially practical when you factor in a year's worth of revenue lost. There is no incentive from a business perspective to shut the course down.

So my question is: since we know Pebble will be a U.S. Open course for the foreseeable future, how do you present the best version of it? What can realistically be done to create a compelling championship?

When your awesome wife is willing to foster your budding golf architecture obsession and gifts you these for your birthday. She even researched what to get on The Fried Egg. 🥹 Surprise handwritten foreword in The Golf Courses of the British Isles.

In the last 50 years, is there another location in the U.S. that's built as many independently owned courses over such a short period of time as Aiken? If you include Columbia and Augusta in the equation, we're getting to nearly double digits of just new builds! TTF, OB (3 courses), New Holland, Broomsedge, The Patch, 21 Club, The Chalk Mine, and maybe some more I'm missing. Do we think this trend is nearing it's end? Or is there a possibility for more courses, either private or public resort style?

If the answer is yes and you're interested in exploring it further, shoot me an email! grant.w.mcgrath@gmail.com

Cheers, Grant

Hello Fried Eggers,

Just watched the new Northwood Golf Club ASMR video, and got to say this is my favorite video TFE has ever made!

Northwoods was my home golf course during the COVID pandemic. Twice a week, my friend and I would meet in the early afternoon, make two loops, then eat a picnic dinner on the two Adirondack chairs up above the ninth hole. Since then, I've moved from Sonoma County to Michigan but I think about this little 9-holer a lot.

Y'all did a great job showing my favorite hole on the course, the par three 8th,and the MacKenzie bunkers surrounding the little green.

Thank you and kudos on the great video!!

Rory's comments at his Pebble press conference about the potential of him designing a course (thanks for the right up Joseph) got my mind turning.

The idea of a pro teaming up with a architect isn't new. Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye, and, of course, Coore and Creenshaw.

Who do you think playing now would make a great design pair with an active architect? Who's a good fit for Rory?

For Rory, I don't know why, but Kyle Phillips sticks out to me. I'm struggling to think of a name that fits for Scottie and the Fair Police. I haven't played David McLay Kidd course, would you say those are fair? Andrew Green?

Augusta National Golf Club announced today that Augusta Municipal Golf Course, locally known as "The Patch," will reopen for public play on April 15 after a 16-month overhaul of the facility. Tom Fazio and Beau Welling headed up the renovation of The Patch's 18-hole course, and Tiger Woods's firm TGR Design (for which Welling serves as a senior design consultant) handled the creation of a nine-hole short course called The Loop.

Resident green fees for both courses will be affordable. Locals will pay $25-35 at the 18-hole course and $15 at The Loop. ANGC did not specify out-of-town rates, but I would obviously expect them to be substantially higher.

The Patch will host limited pay for local community groups in mid-March before shuttering for "private hospitality opportunities" during the week of The Masters.

Check out a few photos of the new golf courses (the first two of the 18-holer, the third of The Loop) below:

Headed to Orlando for work the end of February and will have a day or two to play. Our work deal is down by the airport so looking for something close and not $1000.