Designing Golf

The Sandbelt of Melbourne, Australia, boasts one of the densest concentrations of great golf courses in the world: the West and East courses of Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria Golf Club, and more. In this episode of Designing Golf, Garrett dives deep into the Sandbelt’s history, geology, golf, culture, and virtues as a destination. His guests are Harley Kruse and Lukas Michel, both Australian golf architects who are deeply familiar with the region.

Last year, a devastating wildfire hit Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Jasper Park Lodge and its beautiful Stanley Thompson-designed golf course sustained heavy damage. In today's episode, Garrett speaks with Canadian golf architect Ian Andrew about Jasper Park's road to recovery. They also discuss the history of Jasper Park Golf Course and the design philosophy of Stanley Thompson.

Garrett sits down with Greg Nathan, president and CEO of the National Golf Foundation, to take stock of the U.S. golf course industry. Has the post-Covid surge in participation proven sustainable? What kinds of golf course development are we seeing? Why does there seem to be an under-supply of public golf facilities in certain areas? How are short courses faring? Garrett and Greg get into these questions and more.

With the Ryder Cup approaching, Garrett asks a question that has been on his mind for a while: what, if anything, suits a golf course to the match-play format? Garrett talks to two different architects: first, Andy Staples, who recently designed a match-play course called The Match at PGA National Resort; second, Brian Schneider, who is somewhat skeptical of the notion of a “match-play course.” To close out the episode, Garrett discusses his takeaways from his chats with Andy and Brian, and he offers some thoughts on Bethpage Black’s design and suitability for the Ryder Cup.

Building off of our latest Golf Architecture 101 episode, Garrett Morrison sits down with golf historian Bob Crosby to discuss the historical roots of the notion of fairness in golf course design. Garrett and Bob explore how two major figures of the game in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Laidlaw Purves and John Low, came to represent opposite sides of the fairness debate—a debate that still rages today.

On today’s episode, we dive deep into the history and architecture of Cypress Point Club, site of the upcoming 50th Walker Cup. First, Garrett speaks with David Normoyle, author of Cypress Point’s soon-to-be-published centennial book, about the history of the club. Then Garrett offers some of his own reflections on the course’s land, routing, and design features. Finally, he brings on Joshua Pettit, founder of the Alister MacKenzie Institute, to discuss a few lesser-known facts about Cypress Point’s construction. (0:00-8:35) Introduction and Personal History (10:26-51:07) Interview with David Normoyle (53:24-1:21:55) Cypress Point's Land, Routing, Design, and Presentation (1:21:55-1:40:48) Interview with Joshua Pettit (1:40:48-1:50:53) Concluding Thoughts

In the latest installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett sits down with PJ to discuss the hot-button issue of fairness. What does it mean for a golf course to be fair? What kinds of design features might be considered unfair? Should we expect fairness out of a golf course? Garrett and PJ discuss it all in this episode.

American golfers who visit the UK often come back wondering the U.S. doesn’t have more private golf clubs that encourage outside play. There are a number of reasons for the differences between the UK and U.S. club “models”—some tax-related, others having to do with history and culture. Still, it is possible to create a golf club in the U.S. that combines a strong local membership with a welcoming posture toward the public. That’s exactly what a group of people in Michigan is trying to do by reinventing Dunham Hills Golf Club as Proving Ground Golf Club. In today’s episode, Garrett sits down with the architect behind this project, Mike DeVries. Mike is a partner with the firm Clayton, DeVries & Pont and a decorated solo architect whose designs include Kingsley Club, Cape Wickham Golf Links, Greywalls at Marquette Golf Club, Diamond Springs Golf Course, The Mines Golf Golf Course, and Pilgrims Run Golf Club. Mike and Garrett discuss the story behind the Proving Ground project and the benefits of emulating the UK club model. In the back half of the episode, they dig into Mike’s approach to designing and building affordable, accessible golf courses.

One of the most important discussions in golf architecture today relates to the “footprint” of a golf course—that is, how much space a course takes up, both physically and environmentally. As the USGA Green Section discovered in a recent study, golf course footprints have gotten substantially bigger over time. To explore this phenomenon, Garrett Morrison sits down with George Waters, the manager of USGA Green Section Education. Garrett and George discuss how golf courses have evolved over the past 100 years, why course footprints have grown while many course features (fairways, bunkers, greens) have shrunk, and what these developments mean for the future of golf architecture.

Today we’re diving deep into this year’s Open Championship venue, the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland. Garrett Morrison is joined by Matt Rouches, production associate at Fried Egg Golf, to discuss the history and architecture of this Harry Colt masterpiece. They touch on the the course’s exceptional land, inventive routing, beautifully shaped greens, and more.