Feed The Ball: Recent Episodes
Derek Duncan
In the Feed the Ball podcast, writer Derek Duncan discusses golf course design, architecture, aesthetics and other topics with golf course architects and other luminaries of the game.
British designer Clyde Johnson sits down to answer 24 questions from Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan. He discusses building the world’s largest Himalayas putting green at Rodeo Dunes in Colorado, how his upbringing playing golf in the U.K. influences his design perspective, how the golf architecture business in England and Scotland differs from the U.S. and how the best courses are those that embrace their natural landscapes.
Photos: Cover page, St. Patrick’s Links (courtesy of the club). Above, The Himalayas at Rodeo Dunes (Clyde Johnson).
See Derek narrate “Every Hole at Aronimink” here.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Clyde Johnson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Brett Hochstein is one of the most prominent shapers and collaborators in contemporary golf course design having worked closely with Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, Todd Eckenrode and many other designers. Most recently he was instrumental in the reconstruction of the bunkers and greens at Pasatiempo with Jim Urbina while simultaneously building a roster of his own unique clients.
Brett sits down with Derek to discuss the replication process at Pasatiempo using photography from 1929 and 1930, the possibility of re-establishing the greens at one of Alister MacKenzie’s last course designs in Sacramento, the importance of knowing when to keep your mouth shut, the current state of Himalayas putting greens, the nebulous route to becoming an architect and how mowing adjustments can enhance the playability of even simple municipal courses.
Photos: Cover page, Pasatiempo, hole 8 (courtesy of the club). Above, Lake Merced (Derek Duncan).
See Derek narrate “Every Hole at Aronimink” here.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Brett Hochstein appeared first on Feed The Ball.
The evolution of Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia is one of the most interesting and mildly contentious in American golf. This episode of The Rap with Ron Prichard, who consulted at the club from 1994 to 2015, gets into the details of why.
Photos: Cover page, Aronimink, hole 3. Above, hole 10 (Derek Duncan).
See “Every Hole at Aronimink” here.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post The Rap: Aronimink, Heads or Tails w/Ron Prichard appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Joe Hancock is one of the OG’s of golf course building and shaping, and has worked with the profession’s greatest architects. The list of courses’s he’s helped build is staggering. He joins Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan to discuss how Mike DeVries pulled him into golf design, how his own sense of frugality influences his design outlook, the importance of collaboration in successful design, how the experiential side of golf may be more important than the strategic intentions, the value of creative thought versus using precedent for inspiration and the advice he’d give to younger shapers hoping to have a long career in this industry.
Photos: Cover page, Midland Hills(courtesy of the club). Above, Yeamans Hall.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Salon Vol. 32, ft. Joe Hancock appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect David Kahn of Jackson Kahn Design comes back to the podcast to update us on his twin daughters afflicted with juvenile Batten disease and the 2026 Take a Swing Fore Batten auction. He also sits in the spotlight to answer questions about the challenges and advantages of building estate courses for private owners (that no other golfers get to see), how he views the contemporary trend of idolizing architecture tropes of the past, how Mike Strantz has influenced his outlook on design, developing the courage to build anything he and Tim Jackson can envision and putting the art of golf course design at the center of his ambitions.
Photos: Cover page, Monterey Peninsula Dunes Course (Jon Cavalier). Above, Scottsdale National’s Other Course.
Music: “24 Frames” by Jason Isbell.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with David Kahn appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course designer Dave Zinkand joins Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about his work at Bandon Trails and Bandon Preserve with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, what “sympathetic restoration” looks like to him, what Harry Colt and Tom Simpson taught him about using the ground surrounding hazards, establishing name recognition with new clients and the power of having time on your side.
Photos: Cover page, Desert Forest (courtesy of the club). Above, Bandon Preserve.
Music: “24 Frames” by Jason Isbell.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Dave Zinkand appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jim Urbina returns to the podcast, this time back in the guest chair, for a free-flowing discussion about the proliferation of bunkers in contemporary design, the sameness of courses now, whether designers and developers are pushing a vision or emulating others, and how much William Watson he feels he needs to bring back to his remodel of the Ocean Course at Olympic Club in San Francisco.
Photos: Cover page, Pasatiempo. Above, Loblolly G.C., Hobe Sounds, Fla.
Music: “Photograph,” REM with Natalie Merchant.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 100: Jim Urbina 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf designer Jay Blasi comes on the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about the challenges and importance of good public golf, comparing building new holes on top of existing holes versus working new land, the expectations versus outcome of Chambers Bay, the challenge of having to deal with cart paths, the challenge of making it in a tough industry where you’re two calls away from being out of business and much, much more.
Photos: Cover page, Lakeside Country Club (Laurie Perez). Above, Poppy Ridge (Poppy Ridge).
Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Jay Blasi appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Ran Morrissett is the founder of GolfClubAtlas.com, the most influential golf architecture website of the past 25 years, which means, of all time. He’s a prolific writer and photographer, a consultant in course designs like The Roost at Cabut Citrus Farms in Florida, the former administrator for Golf Magazine’s top 100 U.S. and World courses, and one of the most eloquent advocates for pure, uncomplicated golf, which means walking courses in quiet environments with an absence of accoutrement or attitude.
Ran joins Derek Duncan to discuss golf in quiet places, the possibilities of bunkerless golf courses, the process of building The Roost with three different designers, the challenge of new designers routing courses, the highs and occasional lows of the Golf Club Atlas community and whether we shouldn’t be ranking courses based on experience versus architecture.
Photos: Cover page, The Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms (Carolina Pines Golf). Above, Barnbougle Dunes (Penelope Sattler).
Music: “The Unguarded Moment,” The Church.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 99: Ran Morrissett appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jeff Stein began his career shaping courses for Gil Hanse, Tom Doak, Jim Urbina and other designers. Now he has his own business consulting with clubs and a partnership with Brian Ross designing new courses. They recently opened Great Dunes on Jekyll Island in Georgia and are exploring other opportunities. Jeff talks with Derek Duncan about the unpredictability of the equipment available when building courses, combining the Walter Travis architecture at Great Dunes with parts of a Dick Wilson design, the happiest experience he’s had building golf, his unique job at Ohoopee Match Club and the intricacies of Devereaux Emmet.
Photos: Cover page, The Seawane Club (Larry Lambrecht). Above, Ohoopee Match Club.
Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Jeff Stein appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf architect Todd Eckenrode has built and re-built golf courses up and down California and knows the work of historic architects like Alister MacKenzie, George Thomas, William Watson and Max Behr as well as anyone. He joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss working at and learning to play at Pasatiempo, when to try to “restore” original architecture and when to make alterations, how his outlook on design has changed through time, if public courses can close the conditioning gap on private courses and how the early courses of California evolved into what they’ve become today.
Photos: Cover page, Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club (Channing Benjamin). Above, Diablo Country Club.
Music: “Los Angeles,” Phosphorescent.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 98: Todd Eckenrode appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course designer and builder Jaeger Kovich, who has shaped projects for Gil Hanse and Tom Doak and now is establishing himself as one of the busiest remodel specialists in the business, joins Golf Digest’s Derek Duncan to answer 24 questions about his views on architecture.
Photos: Cover page, The Cradle (Pinehurst Resort). Above, Laurel Links (propergolf.com).
Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Jaeger Kovich appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect Tyler Rae is part of the next wave of major golf course designers. He joins Derek Duncan in the hot seat to answer 24 questions about golf, his career and his outlook on design.
Photos: Cover page, Old Sawmill (Tyler Rae). Above, Lookout Mountain, 11th hole.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post 24 Questions with Tyler Rae appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Martin Ebert is one of the founding partners, along with Tom Mackenzie, of Mackenzie & Ebert, arguably the top golf design firm in Europe. Ebert has been the lead consulting architect, with Mackenzie, for most of the Open Championship courses as well as dozens of clubs in the U.K., Ireland and Europe. They also have several new courses currently under construction around the world.
Ebert joins Derek Duncan to discuss the company’s rise to the upper stratosphere of golf design, his impressions of golf in the U.S., how the cost of building and renovating courses in the U.K. compares to the U.S., the way Mackenzie and Ebert use advanced technology to produce plans, his insistence that green surfaces be constructed down to the most minute details of those plans and the trend of architects build too much contour into their greens.
Photos: Cover page, Royal Portrush (mackenzieandebert.com). Above, The Island (mackenzieandebert.com).
Outro song: Brendan Benson, “Metairie.”
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 97: Martin Ebert appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jerry Pate burst into the golf world when he won the 1976 U.S. Open at Atlanta Athletic Club in just his second year on tour. From 1976 through 1982 when he won the first Players Championship held at the new Pete Dye-designed TPC Sawgrass he was one of the best players in the world, contending in other majors and earning a spot on the 1981 Ryder Cup team. Injuries forced him off the Tour and into other ventures including golf course design, pairing up with luminaries like Bob Cupp and Tom Fazio. He recently completed a major renovation of the Pete Dye masterpiece Teeth of the Dog at Casa de Campo in the D.R.
Pate joins the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about the work he’s done at Teeth of the Dog and his longtime connection to the resort, what Dye told him about architecture in 1974, the challenges of building Teeth, the penal aspects of the original TPC course, his short but illustrious television career and his real thoughts about National Golf Links of America.
Photos: Cover page, Teeth of the Dog (Enrique Berardi). Above, Kiva Dunes (Kiva Dunes).
Outro song: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Alabama Pines.”
Watch Derek Duncan break down the original Redan hole at North Berwick.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 96: Jerry Pate appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Trey Kemp has been one of the most active and influential figures in public and municipal golf design in Texas for over 15 years. He spent much of that time working with John Colligan and now has his own firm, continuing to improve public courses while also pursuing new course commissions. He joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the challenges and opportunities working in the public sphere, what courses have guided his design aesthetic, the value of Tom Fazio, if the Raynor resurgence is played out, the secret sauce to making public golf profitable and what it takes to break into the architectural elite.
Photos: Main page, Rockwood Golf Course (credit: fortworthgolf.org); Above, Texas Rangers Golf Club (courtesy of the club).
Outro song: Wilco, “How to Fight Loneliness.”
Watch Derek Duncan break down the original Redan hole at North Berwick.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 95: Trey Kemp appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Lost Rail Golf ClubBill Kubly is one of the OG’s in golf course architecture. He’s the founder Landscapes Unlimited, of one of golf’s most prominent course construction companies (opened in 1976), and has had a hands-on, up front view of the profession for 50 years.
Kubly joins the Feed the Ball podcast to share stories from a long career building golf courses for virtually all of the industry’s architects going back two generations. He talks to Derek Duncan about being a founding investor in Sand Hills Golf Club with Dick Youngscap, the architectural impact of golf in the Sandhills, what firms delivered the cleanest set of blueprints, the difference between contractor bids and design/build, working special projects like Lost Rail with Scott Hoffman and his involvement in the development of Sutton Bay, one of the great sleeper destination clubs in the U.S.
Photos: Main page, Sutton Bay (credit: Gary Kellner); Above, Lost Rail (courtesy of the club).
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 3rd hole a Oakmont Country Club.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 94: Bill Kubly appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Ron Whitten, historian and former Golf Digest architecture editor, and Mike Davis, former USGA CEO and executive director, delve deep into the origins, evolution and architecture of Oakmont Country Club. We discuss how and why Oakmont developed the way it has, what makes it arguably the greatest championship venue in American golf, what makes the greens so unique and so fast, whether it’s a purely penal design, how Whitten shamed the club into reclaiming their treeless identity in the 1990s and the course’s specific strengths and weaknesses.
Photos: Main page, Oakmont CC, First hole; Above, Oakmont’s second hole.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 13th hole at Augusta National.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post The Rap: Oakmont, One of One appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course designer Riley Johns joins Derek and Jim from his home in Canada to fill us in on his latest thoughts on course building and artistry. Johns has been splitting time between his own growing business with partner Keith Rhebb, leading projects for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and even working with Jim on the renovation of St. Charles in Winnipeg, a club with nines by both Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross. We talk about the influence of Stanley Thompson and Thompson’s similarities to MacKenzie, the benefits of unconditional constraints in artistic design, the luxury of improvising in the field, the downside of following recipes and the value of collaborative input vs. intense auteurism.
Photos: Main page, Te Arai South, 5th hole (Ricky Robinson); Above, Winter Park 9
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 13th hole at Augusta National.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Salon Vol. 31, ft. Riley Johns appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Augusta National is complicated. It’s the most famous course in the world and has been an architectural and maintenance ideal for decades, even though the design is in a continuing state of flux and the turf and bunker conditions have been far from perfect over its life. If it isn’t what we think it is, and perhaps never was, and if it has passed through numerous very different versions of itself, how can it perennially and for most of its history be considered essentially one thing: arguably the best or second best course in the U.S. and number one on every golfer’s bucket list?
Designer, historian and Golf Digest architecture emeritus Ron Whitten, and prolific author David Owen (who wrote the seminal book on the Masters called “The Making of the Masters“) sit with Derek Duncan to hash out all of this and explore the depths of Augusta.
The Comprehensive Guide to Every Change at Augusta National.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post The Rap: Augusta Agonistes appeared first on Feed The Ball.
You may have read or heard someone talk about good or bad “tie-ins” on a golf course. It loosely has to do with how the architecture is connected to the land during construction, but the topic is much larger and more nuanced than that. Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina define and discuss tie-ins, what they are, and why doing them correctly is important to the functionality and enjoyment of a golf course.
Cover photo: The 4th at Pacific Dunes, built by Jim Urbina.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Ask/Answer: What is a “Tie-in”? appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Looking ahead to The Players Championship, former PGA Tour player Richard Zokol and designer Jeff Mingay drop in from Canada to break down everything there is to know about The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass (Zokol actually competed on Sawgrass in the 1980s). We get into the history and creation of the course, how it exemplifies Pete Dye’s architectural genius, its influence on golf design, playing the course with 1980s equipment, how the professionals have adapted to it and commentary on its best, worst and most overrated holes.
Outro song: “Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd.
Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post The Rap: Dye-secting TPC Sawgrass appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Writer Michael Croley, author of the book Any Other Place: Stories, veered into the world of golf with a revelatory profile on Tom Doak in 2017 in the Virginia Quarterly Review, hardly the place you’d expect to find an expose on a golf course architect. Now fully entrenched in the golf writing world while teaching creative writing at Denison University, Croley joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how he was able to get under the surface of Doak’s public persona, the usefulness of being new to a subject, if the concept of “genius” applies to golf course architects, the usefulness of criticism in golf writing and if contemporary architecture is “sanded out.”
Photos: Above, Kinsale; Main page, St. Patrick Links (Clyde Johnson).
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 93: Michael Croley appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Former Australian, European and PGA Tour player and current CBS Sports golf broadcaster Ian Baker-Finch joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina on the Feed the Ball podcast. They discuss the lack of architecture discussion during tournament television broadcasts, the dangers of the distance professional players are driving the ball, the importance of seeing as many different courses as possible, the different genius of Bill Coore and Tom Fazio, why PGA Tour rounds take so long, what makes Australian Sand Belt courses so distinct and what Baker-Finch’s ideal course design would look like.
Photos: Above, Pebble Beach (Stephen Szurlej); Main page, Kingston Heath (David Cannon).
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 30, ft. Ian Baker-Finch appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Hole No. 17credit: LC Lambrecht/Courtesy of Whispering Pines GC (or however Larry Lambrecht likes his credit to appear)Texas-based architect Chet Williams joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss designing the 2024 Golf Digest Best New Private Course, The Covey at Big Easy Ranch near Houston. He talks about what made the land special, the ideal of creating as much hole-to-hole variety as possible, working with owner Billy Brown and how 25 years working for Jack Nicklaus has influenced his design sensibilities.
Photos: Above, Whispering Pines 17th hole (Larry Lambrecht); Main page, The Covey at Big Easy Ranch, 8th hole (Brian Oar).
Outro song: “Anything Can Happen,” The Clean.
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 92: Chet Williams appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Keith Cutten comes back on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the new Shorty’s course at Bandon Dunes that opened last year, Brantford Golf & Country Club in Ontario and building Ken Baskt’s The Ranch near Hobe Sound, Florida. He also explains the working dynamics of his firm Whitman, Axland, Cutten (WAC), how Dave Axland and Rod Whitman work, the importance of small contours and what an updated chapter of his book The Evolution of Golf Course Design might look like.
Photos: Above, Brantford Golf & Country Club (Brantford G&CC); Main page, Shorty’s at Bandon Dunes (Bandon Dunes).
Outro song: “Time Stands Still,” Rush.
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 91: Keith Cutten 3 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Davis was the CEO and executive director for the USGA for over 30 years and was responsible for awarding U.S. Opens and Amateurs to host courses and helping to set them up for those tournaments. Over the course of his career he got to know intricately virtually every great golf course in the U.S. He now takes that knowledge into a new chapter of his life as a golf course designer, working with partner Tom Fazio II at Apogee Club in Florida designing the South Course, just completed.
Davis talks to Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina about his first foray into design being such a large engineering project, fitting ideas of holes he experienced while setting up Opens into a blank-slate site and the challenges of balancing the demands of agronomy, professional skill levels, average member play and tournament play in modern design.
Photos: Above, Merion’s 5th hole (Derek Duncan); Main page, Apogee South (Jim Urbina).
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 29, ft. Mike Davis appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Scottish golf course architect Benjamin Warren joins the Feed the Ball podcast with Derek Duncan to discuss building The Loop at Chaska in Minnesota, a course designed for adaptive golfers, working extensively in Japan, why recent architecture outshines that of the 80s and 90s, the challenge of building true links in the U.S. and shaping courses for architects like Bill Coore, James Duncan, Kye Goalby and Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead.
Photos: Above, The Loop at Chaska (chaskaloop.com); Main page, The Tree Farm, hole 13 (Jeff Marsh).
Outro song: “Better Trends,” Japanese Motors.
Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 90: Benjamin Warren appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Nick Schaan works side by side with architect David McLay Kidd out of their offices in Bend, Ore. Kidd is one of the most esteemed and decorated designers in the business over the last 25 years, and since 2006 Schaan has been instrumental in bringing to life acclaimed courses like Tributary, Mammoth Dunes and the new GrayBull course in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.
Schaan joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss GrayBull, making the new course at Gamble Sands different than the first, flying with Kidd as he pilots his private plane, the mastery of Pete Dye, the challenge of building Huntsman Springs (now Tributary), advancing their concept of “playability,” how they routed GrayBull and his thoughts on what the next generation of architects need to do to inherit the torch from Kidd and his peers.
Photos: Above, Gamble Sands’ 17th (Brian Oar); Main page, GrayBull’s 11th.
Outro song: “Wishlist,” Pearl Jam.
Watch Derek Duncan break down The Postage Stamp at Royal Troon.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 89: Nick Schaan appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Cocking is the “C” in the Australian golf design firm OCM. His partners are former tour player and 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and Ashley Mead. The trio have built courses in Australia and Asia and consult with some of the top historic clubs Down Under including Victoria and Kingston Heath. Over the last five years they’ve gained a foothold in the U.S. as well, beginning with the renovation of Shady Oaks in Fort Worth and more recently executed the radical reconception of the famous #3 course at Medinah outside Chicago. They have new projects, too, including the Fall Line in central Georgia, Tepetonka in Minnesota and a course near Austin.
Cocking joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how OCM broke ground in the states, the influence of Alister MacKenzie in Sand Belt golf, caddie culture, the insurmountable cost of building affordable public golf, the DNA of Sand Belt golf, the rare privilege of routing courses, the role of aesthetics in perceptions of greatness and the concept behind the revamping of Medinah.
Photos: Main Page, Victoria Golf Club (Gary Lisbon); Above, Medinah #3 (Medinah C.C.)
Outro song: Modest Mouse, Sunspots in the House of the Late Scapegoat
Watch Derek Duncan break down The Postage Stamp at Royal Troon.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 88: Mike Cocking appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Lee Schmidt’s lengthy golf architecture career began in the early 1970s working for Pete Dye and took many different detours through the decades. He worked closely with Landmark Land Company on numerous Dye projects in the 70s and 80s before taking a job with Jack Nicklaus’ design firm. In the late 1990s he created his own firm with Brian Curley, and the two built courses across the U.S. and also made deep inroads into the Asian market, becoming the most influential American architects in the region–they designed and built over a dozen courses at China’s Mission Hills development alone. Today Schmidt is semi-retired, though as is always true in golf architecture, there’s always work that keeps pulling him back.
Schmidt joins Golf Digest’s Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina to share stories about Pete and P.B. Dye, learning about golf design from Bill Diddel, the different construction approaches of Dye and Nicklaus, building the Alcatraz Bunker at PGA West’s 16th hole, Dye’s love of building courses that were challenging to professionals, the decision to leave Nicklaus, how he formed his partnership with Curley and opened over 60 courses in China and rooming with Bill Coore in the early 70s.
Photos: Cover page, The Wilderness Club (wildernessclubmontana.com); Above, the Alcatraz Bunker at PGA West.
Watch Golf Digest’s drone video of Pinehurst No. 2 here.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon 28, ft. Lee Schmidt appeared first on Feed The Ball.
If might seem like golf course architect Scott Hoffman came out of nowhere with his design at Lost Rail, opened in 2022 outside of Omaha. However, he’d previously worked for over a decade with Tom Fazio, designing courses in the western U.S. He then worked with Tim Jackson and David Kahn for a number of years. Hoffman wasn’t pursuing new work when he was approached about looking at land for a club near Omaha, where he’s from, and those interests turned into Lost Rail, Golf Digest’s runner up for Best New Private Course for 2023. He’s now busy constructing Mapleton, another new stand-alone club near Sioux Falls, Idaho.
Hoffman joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss finding the land for Lost Rail, his instinct for routing golf courses, the insomnia-inducing puzzle of routing Lost Rail, the freedom of working for Fazio versus being his own business, how to water a 20,000 square-foot green, whether classical architecture influences his designs, the futility of properly evaluating a course after just one round and how he compares and contrasts Shinnecock Hills with National Golf Links of America.
Photos: Cover page, Lost Rail (Lost Rail Golf Club); Above, the par-3 11th at Scottsdale National.
Watch and listen to Bill Coore narrate the latest Golf Digest Every Hole at Cabot Saint Lucia (script by Derek Duncan).
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 87: Scott Hoffman appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw joins golf course builder Jim Urbina and Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss his long time partnership with architect Bill Coore and the beliefs and impulses that define the many courses they’ve built, from Sand Hills to Friar’s Head to Bandon Trails, all the way through to their newest courses including Point Hardy at Cabot Saint Lucia.
Crenshaw talks about meeting Urbina for the first time, Coore grooming green contours down to the quarter inch, how his roots playing dry and windy courses influenced his preference for designing toward the ground game, the importance of matching turf conditions to the architecture, the influence of Perry Maxwell in his green building and the intuitive and enduring chemistry between he and Coore.
Powered by Highest quality CBD oil
Watch and listen to Bill Coore narrate the latest Golf Digest Every Hole at Cabot Saint Lucia (script by Derek Duncan).
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
Photos: Opening page, Sand Hills #4; Above, Sand Hills #2
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 27, ft. Ben Crenshaw appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course architect Greg Letsche, lead designer for Ernie Els Design, joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina to discuss his early years working for Pete Dye, how running projects for Jack Nicklaus differed from his experience with Dye, the design similarities between Dye and Nicklaus, the sometimes absurd challenges and hiccups working internationally in different cultures, how Els’ sympathy for poor golfers manifests in his designs, reuniting with Nicklaus at The Bear’s Club and transitioning into renovating older courses like the Scarlet Course at Ohio State (MacKenzie) and Wentworth (Colt) near London.
PHOTOS: Cover image: Albany, Bahamas (albanybahamas.com); Above: Anahita Mauritius (ernieels.com)
Watch Derek Duncan discuss Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, host of the 2023 U.S. Open.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 26, ft. Greg Letsche appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In less than 10 years in the profession, Blake Conant has risen from crew member to shaper to the co-designer of Old Barnwell, a stunning new course near Aiken, S.C. Conant has primarily shaped greens and bunkers for Tom Doak at projects like Houston’s Memorial Park, Bel Air, The National’s Gunnamatta Course in Australia and St. Patrick’s in Ireland while working closely with Doak’s associates Eric Iverson, Don Placek, Brian Slawnik and Brian Schneider, who is his co-designer at Old Barnwell.
Conant joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the difference between being a shaper for someone else and having final edit responsibility at Old Barnwell, how the search for creative opportunities stokes his passion for golf design, whether he and Schneider began with an initial vision for Old Barnwell, originality vs. derivation, drawing inspiration from other forms of art and nature and if designers of his generation need to be more ethically aware of golf development’s impacts on sustainability, social connections and the economy.
PHOTOS: Cover image: Old Barnwell, 13th hole; Above: Old Barnwell’s 6th and 7th holes.
Watch Derek Duncan discuss Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, host of the 2023 U.S. Open.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 86: Blake Conant appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Shortly after Tom Weiskopf broke with design partner Jay Morrish in the late 1990s he turned to architect Phil Smith. Smith had been working with Nicklaus Design in Arizona, but the opportunity to partner one-on-one with Weiskopf was too good an opportunity to pass up. Over the next 24 years, Smith and Weiskopf designed courses…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 85: Remembering Tom Weiskopf with Phil Smith appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Don Placek began working for Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design in 1997 after being in Perry Dye’s Denver office for several years. It was a significant jump, going from the types of technical builds Dye was coordinating in the western U.S. and Asia to Doak’s more intuitive, organic way of designing and constructing courses. Placek…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 84: Don Placek appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect Stephen Kay has been involved in the building, remodeling or renovation of over 300 courses during his design career spanning back to the mid-1980s. He was one of the pioneering voices in the late 80s for looking at the historical record of a course during renovation to attempt to honor the original architecture. He built numerous new courses in the 1990s and early 2000s, many public, including The Architects Golf Club in New Jersey (in collaboration with Ron Whitten), where each hole was based on the style of a different architect. He continues to be busy with major remodels, consultations and a new municipal course, and is always one of the most entertaining voices in the room.
Kay joins Derek Duncan on the podcast to share story after story about what the business was like in the late 70s and 80s, the myth of green speeds, the impact of turf technology on golf course design, building the minimalist Links of North Dakota at the same time Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were building the minimalist Sand Hills and a host of other intriguing topics.
Photos: Cover page, The Architects Golf Club (thearchitectsclub.com); Above, The Links of North Dakota (thelinksofnorthdakota.com).
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 83: Stephen Kay appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course builder Allan MacCurrach began working on crews for Pete Dye in the late 1970s and opened his own golf course contracting company in 1987. He’s been involved in building or remodeling over 20 courses for Dye, who passed away in early 2020, as well as architects like Tom Fazio, Bobby Weed and Rees Jones. MacCurrach is also responsible for constructing–and designing, through interpretation of the numerous conversations and planning sessions he had with Dye —The Dye Course at White Oak, Golf Digest’s Best New Private Course of 2022. White Oak, located near Jacksonville on the Florida/Georgia border, is extremely private and is played only occasionally by its billionaire owner, his few guests and select Golf Digest panelists.
MacCurrach joins the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about his involvement in the White Oak project, creating something distinctive on a non-distinctive site, the opportunity and challenge of attempting to carry out Dye’s design directives after Dye could no longer participate in the construction, the evolution of Dye’s green contours as a reaction to higher green speeds, how the golf course building business has changed to a renovation business and the artistic and engineering genius of the original TPC Sawgrass design.
Photos: Cover page–The 16th hole at The Dye Course at White Oak (Brian Oar); Above–White Oak’s par 3 17th (Brian Oar).
See more White Oak photos and flyovers here.
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 82: Allan MacCurrach appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Designer and historian Josh Pettit began collecting the writings of Alister MacKenzie for his new compendium of essays, “The MacKenzie Reader,” years ago, and was ready to publish in 2020 when the pandemic postponed printing until the summer of 2022. The wait was worth it–the Reader is a gorgeous volume of Pettit’s selections of the architect’s best and most important writings, presented with sketches, prints and routing maps. The volume will soon be in its third edition.
Pettit visits the Salon to speak with hosts Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina about a variety of topics, from his research into the archives at The Valley Club of Montecito that helped inform Urbina and Tom Doak’s greens renovation, the horse-trading that goes on with memberships when attempting to recreate what was originally designed, the romanticism of early-internet archival research and what’s still undiscovered, MacKenzie’s process for identifying local talent to construct his courses, the necessary discrepancy between the green elevations MacKenzie drew and what was originally built (and the problem that presents to preservationists), and why there isn’t a contemporary voice advocating for design ideals comparable to MacKenzie.
Get “The MacKenzie Reader” here.
Photos: Above, The Valley Club of Montecito (LC Lambrecht); Opening page, “Thirteenth at Cypress Point” (J.P. Graham Photos)
Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play
Twitter: @feedtheball
Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 25, ft. Josh Pettit appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Landmand Golf Club in northeast Nebraska, just across the Missouri River from Sioux Falls, is one of the largest and most expansive golf courses ever built, with the largest total square footage of greens of any course in the U.S. That it was designed by Rob Collins and Tad King, creators or the equally audacious…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 24, ft. Rob Collins appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jim Nagle began working with golf course renovation and historical restoration legend Ron Forse in 1998, in what might be considered the field’s pioneering days. Golf course restoration is an attempt to reestablish a course’s first principles–placing it back in a specific point in time, usually in accordance with the way the original architect designed…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 81: Jim Nagle appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jason Straka has been a principle in Fry/Straka Global Golf Design since joining with partner Dana Fry in 2012. Previously he was the senior architect for Hurdzan-Fry Golf Design, helping that company build landmark courses like Calusa Pines, Erin Hills and Shelter Harbor. Fry/Straka is one of the hottest design firms in the world right…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 23, ft. Jason Straka appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Andy Staples positioned himself as one of the profession’s most creative architects with his throwback renovation of Meadowbrook Country Club near Detroit with its Willie Park, Jr. inspired early-1900s shaping. He moved into the 1920s with his green designs and shot strategies at The Match Course at PGA National Resort, opened in 2021, that pull…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 22, ft. Andy Staples appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Chris Cochran began his career building golf courses for Jack Nicklaus in the mid-1980s. With over 100 international projects completed, he is Nicklaus Design’s longest tenured senior design associate, and since the early 90s has arguably been the most significant mover behind Nicklaus Design’s global operation. Cochran sits down with Golf Digest architecture editor Derek…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Volume 21, ft. Chris Cochran appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Joe Jemsek grew up with Dick Wilson. At least figuratively. In the early 1960s, Wilson, one of golf architecture’s most interesting and possibly misunderstood figures, designed the former America’s 100 Greatest Course Cog Hill No. 4 in Chicago, known as Dubsdread, for Jemsek’s grandfather. Few people knew Wilson or his former partner Joe Lee as…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 80: Joe Jemsek on Dick Wilson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tim Liddy and Dave Axland have worked together on a number of projects including, most recently, Harrison Lake in Indiana, a remodel that included the addition of several new holes and a re-routing of the course. Liddy, the primary designer, was a longtime collaborator with the late Pete Dye and knows his mentor’s work and…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 20, ft. Dave Axland and Tim Liddy appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In just the last several years, designer Andrew Green has played a prominent role in guiding back to their founding architectural spirit a number of prominent major championship courses, including America’s 100 Greatest Courses fixtures Inverness Club, Oak Hill East and Congressional Blue. He’s also brought back to life the most interesting features that had…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 79: Andrew Green appeared first on Feed The Ball.
The topic is bunkers: should they be placed scientifically or randomly? Should there be more or less, or any at all? Has the naturalistic look become ubiquitous and overused? What about proper bunker depth? Are liners a waste of money? And are bunker still the hazards they once were, have they lost their importance, and…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 19: Bunkers ft. Ron Whitten appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Like most architects, Steve Smyers has a deep reverence for the classical era and the strategic brilliance of Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie, George Thomas and others. However, as an elite player as well as a veteran designer, he realized the basic strategic precepts that have existed since the early 1900s and have guided much of…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 78: Steve Smyers and Rethinking Strategy appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In this Feed the Ball podcast, we get deep into some Wisconsin golf talk with golf course architect Craig Haltom. Haltom joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss recreating C.B. Macdonald’s The Lido at Sand Valley, how GPS technology has the potential to change the way courses are preserved and finished, how he…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 77: Craig Haltom appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Is it possible we take Whistling Straits for granted? Of all the spectacular builds in the history of golf, from The Lido to Calusa Pines, very little is spoken about how Pete Dye and Herb Kohler transformed flat farmland and an abandoned Army airfield into the wild, multilayered Irish-looking golf course gouged into the bluffs…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 76: Making Whistling Straits appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Davis Love III needs no introduction. But just in case, he’s a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, has logged over 20 PGA Tour victories, won the 1997 PGA Championship, was twice victorious at The Players Championship and is a two-time Ryder Cup captain. He’s also a tournament founder (the PGA Tour’s RSM…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 18, ft. Davis Love III appeared first on Feed The Ball.
James Duncan came to the U.S. from his native Denmark in the early 1990s to learn the craft of building golf courses. He learned from the best, working first with Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf Design, then joining with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to help construct courses like East Hampton, Old Sandwich, Bandon Trails,…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 17, ft. James Duncan appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Designer Troy Miller worked for Landmark Land Co. for a decade, building golf courses around North America, before leaving the company to settle down in his hometown of Charleston, SC. The move put him in a unique position to do something he’d first envisioned years before: help the city rebuild the popular but dated municipal…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 75: Troy Miller appeared first on Feed The Ball.
PGA Tour and current PGA Champions tour player Tom Lehman, winner of the 1996 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s, has seamlessly managed to maintain an elite game while developing a golf course design outlook that almost entirely eschews consideration of elite players. Lehman stops by the Salon to speak with Golf Digest…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 16, ft. Tom Lehman appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In a limited amount of original work, David Kahn has proven to be one of the most creative, courageous and expressionistic golf course architects working today. Along with partner Tim Jackson, the other half of Jackson Kahn Design, he’s reimagined the shaping and visage of the historic Dunes Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, built…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 74: David Kahn appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Canadian designer Ian Andrew, Feed the Ball guest from Episode 14, is back to visit with Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina. The conversation turns to topics of: –Choose Your Own Adventure golf architecture; –The satisfactions of playing “unknown” courses; –Golf as an emotional experience; –The importance of “compression and release” in design; –Creativity beginning with…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 15, ft. Ian Andrew appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Larry Lambrecht has been one of golf’s most prolific and talented photographers for over 30 years. He’s shot golf courses and tournaments, as well as Super Bowls, World Series and other major sporting events, for virtually ever major publication. He’s also published a number of books and club histories along with his course photography, including,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 73: Larry Lambrecht appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course architect Forrest Richardson was elected in 2020 to be the 75th president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, a chair that’s been held by such notable designers as Stanley Thompson, Robert Trent Jones, William Langford (twice), Rees Jones, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., Alice Dye, Jeff Brauer and Steve Smyers. He joins…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 14, ft. Forrest Richardson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect Kyle Phillips began his illustrious career as an associate working for Robert Trent Jones II in California. He gained unique design and planning expertise working on a slate of international courses for Jones, which later helped him garner major overseas jobs once he opened his own firm in the late 90s. Those include Kingsbarns…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 13, ft. Kyle Phillips appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Few people in golf have had as rich or wide-ranging life in golf as Donald Steel. He began his career as the golf reporter for London’s Sunday Telegraph in 1961, memorably covering, as a rookie writer, Arnold Palmer’s back-to-back Open Championship wins at Birkdale and Troon. A few years later, while continuing his reporting duties,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 72: Donald Steel appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf architect Chris Wilczynski has bridged two distinct eras–that of the course-a-day, turn and burn construction frenzy of the 1990s and 2000s, and now the current period of “slow” golf with its focus on boutique operations and club restoration. He began his career as an associate with Arthur Hills, one of the busiest designers of…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 71: Chris Wilczynski appeared first on Feed The Ball.
After working for over a decade for Tom Fazio, Tim Jackson opened his own West Coast design firm with David Kahn, another Fazio alum. Jackson Kahn Design is known for their creative, ambitious ideas about design–as exhibited at, Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course and The Other Course and The Bad Little Nine at Scottsdale…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 12, ft. Tim Jackson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Lester George was an artillery officer in the U.S. Army who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In the late 1980s, already into his 30s, he made a career switch to golf design, setting up a business in his native state of Virginia. In the mid-1990s he was introduced to a magnificent property outside…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 70: Lester George appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf designer Dana Fry began his career learning the business as an associate for Tom Fazio, and later forged a prominent partnership with Dr. Michael Hurdzan. With Hurdzan he created such top U.S. courses as Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open, and Calusa Pines in Florida. Today he runs his business with partner…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 11, ft. Dana Fry appeared first on Feed The Ball.
It’s not unreasonable to suggest the path of golf architecture in the second half of the 20th century can be traced through Ron Kirby. His career has been a remarkable Zelig-like whirlwind placing him in the immediate proximity of Dick Wilson, Robert Trent Jones, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and many others. His name is on…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 69: Ron Kirby appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Rees Jones‘ design work has touched public, resort, club golf and major championship golf as much as any architect of the modern era. He enters the Salon to talk with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan about balancing the many voices that weigh in on projects in the “remodeling era,” constructing on technically challenging sites vs…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 10, ft. Rees Jones appeared first on Feed The Ball.
From the original course at Bandon Dunes to The Castle Course at St. Andrews, to Gamble Sands in Washington and then to Mammoth Dunes in Wisconsin, David McLay Kidd has been one of the most innovative and courageous course designers of this generation. He joins Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina in the Salon to discuss…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 9, ft. David McLay Kidd appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Bruce Hepner and Jim Urbina both began working for Tom Doak at Renaissance Design in the early 1990s, spending many days and hours together on the road for well over a decade. Hepner opened his own business in 2012 and is now one of the most admired renovation and restoration specialists in the business. He…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 8, ft. Bruce Hepner appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Few people in the golf design business knew Pete Dye better than Bobby Weed, who first interned for his mentor in the 1970s. Weed comes into the Salon with Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina to share his thoughts on how Dye continues to influence him, the overriding consideration of drainage, being courted by Jack Nicklaus,…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 7, ft. Bobby Weed appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In this volume of the Salon, architect Gil Hanse sits with Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina to discuss how he and design partner Jim Wagner build golf courses. They talk about the sanctity of being on machinery, if routing is more vital to a good course than shaping, the importance of “cooling off,” the importance…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 6, ft. Gil Hanse appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect Mike DeVries steps into the Salon with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan to discuss arguably the granddaddy of all design topics, routing. The long and winding conversation touches on the exposures of Cape Wickham, sacrificing extraordinary holes for the sake of rhythm and continuity, routing around natural greensites, if routing is a skill that…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 5, ft. Mike DeVries appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Thad Layton, principal at Arnold Palmer Design Company, enters the Salon to talk to Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina about Palmer and the rules of architecture. Specifically the discussion revolves around fundamental rules, when it’s advisable to break them, whether it’s ever permissible to design crossing holes, working within the constraints of conservative developers, straight…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 4, ft. Thad Layton appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Golf course designer and renovation specialist Jeff Mingay enters the Salon to talk about St. Andrews with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan. The central theme is, if The Old Course is so great, why aren’t there more courses that are like it? Topics include the importance of boundaries to traditional golf expectations, blind tee shots,…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 3, ft. Jeff Mingay appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Designer Bill Coore comes into the salon to discuss greens and putting surfaces with Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan. Topics include the importance of shaping greens and surrounds in relation to single holes or the entire golf course, the 14th and 2nd greens at Sand Hills, building “floating” greens and finding natural landforms, looking vs.…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 2, ft. Bill Coore appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan discuss George Thomas, Pete Dye’s par-5 holes, Riviera, the Ghost Tree at Old Macdonald, whether bunkers have become too sanitized, “reasonable” green speeds, Stimpmeter readings from the 1970s. Powered bycowin app download Then Don Mahaffey enters the salon to talk about the beautiful simplicity of Mike Nuzzo’s Wolf Point, the…
Read More Read More
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 1, ft. Don Mahaffey appeared first on Feed The Ball.
For almost 25 years, Jeff Bradley has been known as the preeminent builder of golf course bunkers in the U.S. Working primarily for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, his artistic bunkering has helped define the strategies and style of places like Cuscowilla, Bandon Trails and Friars Head. In doing so, Bradley has influenced a generation…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 68: Jeff Bradley appeared first on Feed The Ball.
George Waters began his design career after spending a summer living and doing course maintenance in Dornoch, then getting an internship with Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design. He worked construction projects for a variety of designers, including Doak, then wrote the seminal book on sand based courses, Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game.…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 67: George Waters appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tyler Rae is gaining a reputation as one of the most talented up and coming golf course renovation and restoration specialists in the business. He’s worked with noted designer Ron Prichard for most of the last decade and now has embarked on his own, with an impressive client list that includes clubs like Northmoor and…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 66: Tyler Rae appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Designer Scot Sherman began his career working for the Dye family before joining Bobby Weed as an associate. He’s now the lead designer for Love Golf Design, the firm of brothers Mark Love and Davis Love III. In addition to overseeing new projects for them, he’s currently helping prep the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 65: Scot Sherman appeared first on Feed The Ball.
As superintendent of Sand Hills Golf Club for the last 13 years, Kyle Hegland has one of the most unique jobs in golf. The world-renowned course is located in one of the most extreme environments for golf — an arid climate ripped by savage winds and brutal winters. Yet Hegland’s expertise in creating and maintaining…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 64: Kyle Hegland appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Brian Schneider joined Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design in 2002. For the last 17 years he’s played a vital role creating some of this generation’s greatest golf courses around the world: Ballyneal, Old Macdonald, Cape Kidnappers, Rock Creek Cattle Company and others. He was the lead design associate on Barnbougle Dunes, Dismal River Red, Grand…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 63: Brian Schneider appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Drew Rogers hung out his own design shingle in 2010 after working 18 years with the firm of (Arthur ) Hills & (Steve) Forrest. While working for Hills he gained extensive expertise building new golf courses, albeit it to the specifications of Hills and his clients. Today, Rogers’ own architectural point of view is evident…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 62: Drew Rogers appeared first on Feed The Ball.
When the story is at last written about the current era of neoclassical architecture, Jim Urbina is certain to be featured as a star character. He represents a distinct branch of the Dye architectural tree having begun his career working on projects for Pete and Perry Dye. Later, Tom Doak hired Urbina at Renaissance Design,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 61: Jim Urbina appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Over the last 15 years, Andy Staples has created his own space in the field of golf design by pioneering sustainability and efficiency in course construction and operation. He’s also helped create and popularize the concept of “Community Links,” a way to better integrate public golf into the lifestyle of the surrounding communities. His practice…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 60: Andy Staples appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jeff Brauer began his career in 1977 working for Dick Nugent and Ken Killian in Chicago and represents a vital link to a previous generation of architecture. Since opening his own design firm in Dallas in 1984, he’s specialized in building public and resort courses in all parts of the country. In the last 20…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 59: Jeff Brauer appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Dave Wilber, aka the Turfgrass Zealot, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on golf grasses and soils. Agronomist to the stars, Wilber has consulted with and been instrumental in developing grassing plans for some of the world’s greatest courses, including places like Kingsbarns in Scotland and Friars Head. He’s also been a pioneer in…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 58: Dave Wilber appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tripp Davis is arguably the most skilled amateur player among active architects. He helped the University of Oklahoma win a National Championship in the 1980s and has been a ranked amateur for most of his adult life, even reaching the quarter finals of the 2009 U.S Mid-Amateur. Fluent in both original design, remodels and historic…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 57: Tripp Davis appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Paul Cowley has worn many hats in his golf career: land and landscape planner, structural architect, superintendent and construction engineer. The majority of his golf architecture career, however, was spent running projects and designing courses for Mark and Davis Love III. Known inside the industry as one of the most creative and original thinkers, Cowley…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 56: Paul Cowley appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tom Dunne founded the independent golf journal McKellar in 2017. Featuring alluring artwork with a playful point of view and stories from the best writers in the business, McKellar has become one of the brightest stars of a much welcomed revival of boutique publishing. In the course of traveling extensively to explore different courses and…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 55: Tom Dunne appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Dutch architect Frank Pont made a dramatic jump from the diverse worlds of engineering, corporate banking and mergers into golf course design in the mid-2000s. Since that time he’s become one of Europe’s most active and respected practitioners in historical restoration and remodeling. Through his work at some of the most prominent old courses on…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 54: Frank Pont appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Eric Iverson has worked with Tom Doak at Renaissance Golf Design since 2001. He’s widely viewed by his peers as one of the business’s most skilled and creative shapers and construction specialists. He helped craft such instant classics like Ballyneal, Cape Kidnappers, Barnbougle Dunes and Streamsong Blue. He also ran the Stone Eagle, Rock Creek…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 53: Eric Iverson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Canadian Trevor Dormer has been in the golf construction business since the early 2000’s and has become a prominent member of the industry’s talented “under-40” (for now) group of construction specialists and shapers. He’s worked around the globe with, among others, Nicklaus Design, Rod Whitman, Ron Prichard, Bill Coore, and Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner.…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 52: Trevor Dormer appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Bruce Charlton joined Robert Trent Jones II in 1981 and the two have been building courses across the globe for nearly 40 years. The firm has earned considerable acclaim for their entire body of work, but their undisputed masterpiece is Chambers Bay near Seattle, site of the 2015 U.S. Open (won by Jordan Speith). Built…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 51: Bruce Charlton appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Dave Axland and Rod Whitman, two of modern golf’s most skilled and admired construction men, met in the 1980s through Bill Coore. Axland has been an associate and project manager for numerous Coore-Crenshaw courses since the mid-1990s including Sand Hills, Talking Stick, Friars Head, Old Sandwich, Chechessee Creek plus numerous others, and has designed Wild…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 50: Dave Axland and Rod Whitman appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Rees Jones has spent nearly 35 years preparing, modifying and remodeling golf courses for major championship events. In addition to the 100 original courses and dozens of renovations he’s orchestrated, he’s infused his vision into such venerable American tournament courses as Pinehurst No. 2, Oakland Hills, Medinah No. 3 and The Country Club for the…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 49: Rees Jones appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Kye Goalby, one of the most accomplished design and shaping specialists in the construction business, is at the top of the call list of just about every A-list golf architect when exceptional feature work is needed. For the last 20 years he’s worked on some of the world’s most unique projects alongside Gil Hanse, Brian…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 48: Kye Goalby appeared first on Feed The Ball.
David Marcucilli’s first passion is his hometown of Newtown, CT, where he’s attempting to orchestrate the funding and design of a new all-season public green space that will include his conception of innovative, non-traditional golf. He hopes it will become a place of sociability, togetherness and pride for a town that is still suffering from…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 47: David Marcucilli appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Matt Dusenberry opened his own design firm in 2013 after years of building courses all over the world at Greg Norman Golf Course Design. He’s demonstrated incredible range in renovation work ranging from the flat Florida coast at Sandhill Crane in Hobe Sound to the magnificent mountain setting of the Cornerstone Club in Colorado. Particularly…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 46: Matt Dusenberry appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Canadian designer, author, artist and historian Keith Cutten returns (Episode 15) to discuss his new book, “The Evolution of Golf Course Design.” The book traces how golf course architecture has morphed and changed through time, and, more importantly, examines the underlying societal and economic forces that continually shape the way golf has historically been created.…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 45: Keith Cutten 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jim Wagner and Gil Hanse have been design partners for over 20 years. Though Hanse’s name is on their courses, Wagner has been equally influential in their concepts and outcomes while overseeing a dedicated group of shapers and designers known as the Cavemen. In the last 10 years the two men have taken their small…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 44: Jim Wagner appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Brian Silva began working for iconic New England architect Geoffrey Cornish in 1983, building golf courses in the traditional way of the day. After a revelation concerning the essence of strategic golf he transitioned into golf course restoration, becoming one of the business’s most respected talents at renovating historic Golden Age-era courses. His particular passion…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 43: Brian Silva appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Jay Blasi founded his own design company in 2012 after working for Robert Trent Jones II for over a decade. He gained notoriety as the lead associate on two high profile Jones courses: The Patriot Golf Club in Oklahoma, and Washington State’s Chambers Bay, host of the 2015 U.S. Open, where Blasi was instrumental in…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 42: Jay Blasi appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Clayton is a throwback to a bygone tradition of golf figures such as Willie Park, Jr., Walter Travis and Max Behr, top players who later became both architects and men of letters. Clayton won the Australian Amateur in 1978 and played the European Tour from 1982 until 2000. He’s written extensively for golf publications…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 41: Mike Clayton appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Not since Hugh Wilson at Merion has an architectural career been launched as brightly as David McLay Kidd’s. As a young designer in his 20’s, Kidd was tabbed by Mike Keiser to build the first course at Bandon Dunes. Kidd followed that spectacular success with a series of prestigious designs across several continents, becoming arguably…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 40: David McLay Kidd appeared first on Feed The Ball.
A rundown of the best moments and most significant exchanges during the first full season of the Feed the Ball podcast. Highlights include thoughts on the current and future state of golf course architecture from Golf Digest architectural editor Ron Whitten, Golf Advisor’s Brad Klein and architect Ian Andrew; thoughts on Tiger Woods as designer…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 39: Best of 2018 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Bruce Hepner began his architectural career in 1990 as an associate for Ron Forse, with whom he became one of the early advocates and influencers of historic golf course restoration. He returned home to Michigan in 1993 to work for Tom Doak, first as a shaper and later as a designer at modern masterpieces like Pacific…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 38: Bruce Hepner appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Brian Curley began his golf course architecture career working on a number of Pete Dye courses for Landmark Land Company. There he met another Dye protégé, Lee Schmidt, and the two combined forces to form the company Schmidt-Curley Golf Design. Since the 1990’s they’ve built courses all over the U.S. and throughout the world, and for…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 37: Brian Curley appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Peter Kessler — the Voice of Golf, historian and one of the most outspoken commentators in the game — returns to the podcast to talk to Derek about his recent social media dustups with Brandel Chamblee and the fans of No Laying Up, about being provocative on Twitter, the skills required to be great on…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 36: Peter Kessler 3 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
P.B. Dye began working on his father Pete Dye’s construction sites when he was a boy. Along with his brother, Perry, he’s had the closest and longest view of how Dye conceived of and built golf courses and was a primary assistant during several of his father’s touchstone courses, including Long Cove on Hilton Head…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 35: P.B. Dye appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Thad Layton began working for Arnold Palmer Course Design in the late 1990’s and now, as Senior Architect and Vice President, leads the company along with fellow designer Brandon Johnson. Since 1972, the firm has been known for producing a massive number of courses worldwide, mostly associated with real estate. Over the last five years, however, Layton…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 34: Thad Layton appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tom Mackenzie joined with Martin Ebert to form the golf architectural firm of Mackenzie & Ebert in 2005. They each began their careers designing golf courses for Donald Steel, and their business is very much a continuation of the elder architect’s practice. Like Steel, Mackenzie prefers to design naturally, altering landscapes as little as possible…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 33: Tom Mackenzie appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Richard Mandell’s golf design practice has taken off over the last 10 years. He entered the business in the early 1990’s and paid his dues for over a decade working singular jobs while learning how to build and renovate courses with a minimal amount of of unnecessary inputs or accessorization. As a result he gained a…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 32: Richard Mandell appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Ron Forse was an engineer who made a jump into golf course architecture in 1989, working on a project in West Virginia in conjunction with Dr. Michael Hurdzan. Though not necessarily his intent, he began taking jobs consulting with a number of historic club, guiding them through the process of renovating their old courses. Since…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 31: Ron Forse appeared first on Feed The Ball.
South Carolina native Beau Welling played college golf at Brown University and earned a landscape architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. After exploring career opportunities in several diverse fields, he committed to golf course architecture joining Tom Fazio’s staff in the late 1990’s. In 2007 he opened his own firm in Greenville, and became…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 30: Beau Welling appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tom Coyne’s fourth book is “A Course Called Scotland,” a funny and poignant tale of his journey playing over 100 links courses in Scotland, England and Wales in less than 60 days. His goal was twofold: to find out the meaning of golf, which must exist somewhere in those sacred links soils; and to hone…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 29: Tom Coyne appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Oregon native Dan Hixson began his golf career as a tour pro and later became a club professional, but his real desire was to be a golf course architect. Despite no formal training, he slowly learned the profession and soon was hired to build Bandon Crossings, a public course just south of Bandon Dunes. That…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 28: Dan Hixson appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Ron Whitten has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in golf course architecture since the mid-1980’s when he became Golf Digest’s architecture editor. He created the current criteria for the magazine’s popular (or, depending, notorious) Top 100 U.S & World Courses lists, has written various books including the essential compendium, “The Architects of…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 27: Ron Whitten appeared first on Feed The Ball.
The first project Kyle Franz ever worked on was Tom Doak’s masterpiece, Pacific Dunes, a course now recognized as one of the best in the world. That fortuitous turn launched his design/build career where he amassed one of the business’s strongest pedigrees shaping courses for Bill Coore, Tim Liddy, Gil Hanse and others. His big solo break came…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 26: Kyle Franz Part 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
The first project Kyle Franz ever worked on was Tom Doak’s masterpiece, Pacific Dunes, a course now recognized as one of the best in the world. That fortuitous turn launched his design/build career where he amassed one of the business’s strongest pedigrees shaping courses for Bill Coore, Tim Liddy, Gil Hanse and others. His big solo break came…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 25: Kyle Franz Part 1 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Nuzzo seemed to have struck gold when he was hired by a wealthy Texas businessman and rancher to build an ultra-exclusive golf course intended only for the client’s personal use. For almost three years, Nuzzo, a first-time architect, and Don Mahaffey, a turf and irrigation specialist, coaxed out a wide, bouncy and fascinating 18-hole…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 24: Mike Nuzzo Part 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Nuzzo seemed to have struck gold when he was hired by a wealthy Texas businessman and rancher to build an ultra-exclusive golf course intended only for the client’s personal use. For almost three years, Nuzzo, a first-time architect, and Don Mahaffey, a turf and irrigation specialist, coaxed out a wide, bouncy and fascinating 18-hole…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 23: Mike Nuzzo Part 1 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Architect Jeff Mingay broke into golf course architecture working projects for his mentor and fellow Canadian Rod Whitman. In 2009, after completing a trio of Canada’s most exceptional modern golf courses — Blackhawk, Sagebrush and Cabot Links — he opened his own design business and found immediate success renovating and restoring courses in British Columbia…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 22: Jeff Mingay appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Sweetens Cove has captured the hearts and minds of the architecture world. Rob Collins and design partner Tad King began building the 9-hole course, 30 minutes west of Chattanooga, in 2012 and have watched it become an impassioned touchstone for a vocal, hardcore group of golf course fanatics as it marches steadily up the golf…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 21: Rob Collins appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike Young has seen the golf course design business from all sides, starting as a rep for maintenance and turf companies before establishing himself as one of the state of Georgia’s most prominent and prolific architects. Young builds his courses the old fashioned way — himself — and his years as designer, builder and…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 20: Mike Young appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Tim Liddy began his career working closely with Pete Dye in 1993, transitioning into golf course design following a career in landscape architecture. The two men have enjoyed a close collaboration for a quarter century, with Liddy becoming fluent in the Dye vernacular while also establishing his own independent firm responsible for highly acclaimed original…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 19: Tim Liddy appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Peter Kessler was the face and voice of the Golf Channel when the station first went live in 1995. Over the next seven years he commanded the show, mastering ceremonies and interviewing virtually every important figure in golf and instruction. In the course of that time period, and for years following hosting his show on Sirius XM’s PGA…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 18: Peter Kessler, Part 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Peter Kessler was the face and voice of the Golf Channel when the station first went live in 1995. Over the next seven years he commanded the show, mastering ceremonies and interviewing virtually every important figure in golf and instruction. In the course of that time period, and for years following hosting his show on…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 17: Peter Kessler, Part 1 appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Brad Klein has been one of the media’s foremost authorities on golf course architecture since he began writing for Golfweek Magazine in 1988. He created that publication’s highly influential ranking of America’s 100 greatest modern and classic courses, and he recently, after 30 years, moved on to a new position with Golf Advisor and the…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 16: Bradley Klein appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Keith Cutten is an integral player in golf design’s next generation who has worked alongside a variety of architects including Bill Coore, Jeff Mingay, Doug Carrick and, most importantly, his mentor Rod Whitman shaping features, drafting plans, developing budgets and running job sites. He’s also one of the leading young historians on golf course design and…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 15: Keith Cutten appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Ian Andrew is one of golf’s most respected restoration and preservation specialists, working principally on Golden Age courses in Canada. He has few peers when it comes to observation and the analysis of golf course architecture, and he rarely shies from expressing candid opinions on the state of the game. His writings can be found…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 14: Ian Andrew appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Mike DeVries belongs to an elite class of golf architects working today who have been fortunate to work on properties that qualify as some of the best sites golf has seen since the 1920’s. His jaw-dropping design at Cape Wichkam Links on Kings Island in Tasmania, with wide holes rolling along the rocky ocean shore,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 13: Mike DeVries appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Dr. Michael Hurdzan was on golf’s center stage the summer of 2017 during the U.S. Open, contested at Erin Hills, the giant, rambling meadow course he designed with then partner Dana Fry and Ron Whitten. It was a well-deserved moment for the architect known as much for building some of the most artistically voluptuous courses…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 12: Dr. Michael Hurdzan appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Do you love Donald Ross and the idea of experiencing accurate expressions of his designs? Then this podcast is for you. Architect Kris Spence made the jump from golf superintendent to the design and build world when a club in North Carolina hired him to help restore the lost features of its Donald Ross course. 20…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 11: Kris Spence appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Nobody’s roots stretch deeper into the field of golf architecture than Robert Trent Jones II’s. Oldest son of Robert Trent Jones and now in his sixth decade of design, he’s been literally almost everywhere, seen everything and been a prominent voice the industry his entire life. After some light banter about fatalism and nuclear bombs,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 10: Robert Trent Jones II appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Rod Whitman has been one of golf’s masters of construction for nearly 40 years and has designed a number of courses on his own. In 2010 he got the call every architect dreams of — an offer to design and build a course on one of the world’s great new seaside properties, in this case…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 9: Rod Whitman appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Following the economic crash of 2008, Love Golf Design, founded by brothers Mark Love and Davis Love III, decided to step back. Now, after a hiatus, the company has resumed business with several new renovations in the works following last year’s completion of Atlantic Dunes, a total remodel of one of the Lowcountry’s original golf…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 8: Mark Love appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Few living architects are better than Steve Smyers at combining an understanding of golf shots and strategy with holes that possess immense visual flourish. Based in Florida, he’s designed courses and played in top-level amateur tournaments all over the globe. He joins Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how he’s always evolving as a designer,…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 7: Steve Smyers appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Keith Rhebb is one of the leaders of a new generation of golf course architects who have learned the trade shaping courses for design-build luminaries like Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak, and Gil Hanse. He’s worked for Coore and Crenshaw at places like Lost Farm at Barnbougle Dunes, Cabot Cliffs and Streamsong…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 6: Keith Rhebb appeared first on Feed The Ball.
To renovate or restore. That is the question many historic clubs must decide when their courses are in need of repair. Just as many would view it a tragedy to deface a pristine Colonial- or antebellum-era house with modern accoutrements, prominent golf voices believe the features of classic era courses, and the architectural intent behind…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 5: Ron Prichard appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In this episode, architect Bill Bergin and Derek Duncan catch up and discuss a wide array of subjects including Bill’s recent and upcoming re-workings of several historic clubs, WWSRD (what would Seth Raynor do?), keeping pace with Bob Tway and the northwest Atlanta high school golf scene, going low at St. Andrews, Bill’s top 3 Atlanta…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 4: Bill Bergin appeared first on Feed The Ball.
In this episode of Feed the Ball, Derek Duncan speaks to Bill Coore, who along with design partner Ben Crenshaw and their team of shapers has built a collection of what are considered to be some of the greatest golf courses of the last 60 or 70 years. Bill shares his thoughts on life and…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 3: Bill Coore appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Bobby Weed joins Derek Duncan on the latest edition of the Feed the Ball podcast. Join us as Bobby talks about how he learned from Pete Dye that all good golf courses are built in the field, the joy of getting back on the bulldozer, his recent work at The Medalist Club in South Florida…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 2: Bobby Weed appeared first on Feed The Ball.
Noted golf course architect and past winner of Golf Digest’s Architect of the Year Award Jim Engh calls in to talk to Derek Duncan about the concept of image creation, pushing the envelop in his designs, the eureka moment that led him to pursue his bold style of golf holes, chasing an endorphine rush on…
Read More Read More
The post Episode 1: Jim Engh appeared first on Feed The Ball.