Category: Golf Courses
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STEAM SHOVEL SCULPTING AT MAXINKUCKEE
The fourth edition of this season’s Upping My Dye-Q Series speculates on the influence of Langford & Moreau’s work at Maxinkuckee Country Club on the Dyes In order to truly understand and appreciate the work of an architect, it is necessary to look at their sources of inspiration. After all, there are very few (if…
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FROM CHRISTMAS TREES TO GREEN FEES AT CHAMPION HILL
The story of the Stone family’s Northern Michigan journey into golf course construction and ownership at Pinecroft and Champion Hill “Are you going to play Champion Hill this time?” My golf buddy Ben knew that I was making trips to Northern Michigan and he would text me this question every time I posted a photo…
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LIGHT BULB MOMENTS AT THE LOOP
A look at Tom Doak’s brilliant reversible design, The Loop at Forest Dunes Golf Club “Golf is a science, the study of a lifetime, in which you can exhaust yourself but never your subject.” – David Forgan A golf course that can be readily grasped after a single round is not likely to ever be…
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COURSE WORK AT KAMPEN
The third edition of this season’s Upping My Dye-Q series takes a look into the multi-dimensional Kampen Course at Purdue University’s Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex As an alum of the University of Illinois, it is not easy to give praise to Purdue. The simple truth, however, is that the golf geeks in West Lafayette have…
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A WEE CHANGE AT CANAL SHORES
Part 26 of the Journey Along the Shores series takes a look at the creation of the Wee Burn When Cypress Point opened, it received universal praise. One would assume that a categorically positive reaction would please the architect. Instead, Dr. Alister MacKenzie famously expressed concern—in his experience, any golf course that didn’t turn off…
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BOLD, BEAUTIFUL BAYONNE
A LinksGems course tour and appreciation of the Eric Bergstol designed Bayonne Golf Club by Jon Cavalier Bayonne Golf Club is, to put it mildly, one of the more unique golf clubs in the United States. Built entirely from scratch by Eric Bergstol, the course represents the antithesis of the “minimalist” trend in golf course architecture,…
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LANGUAGE MATTERS
Getting back on track with use of the term ‘minimalism’, among others in golf course architecture It is a common tendency to label and categorize the things and experiences in our lives. That is part of the way that we understand and make sense of the world around us, and it is useful to a…
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THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE AT MOSHOLU
How a new generation is contributing to the revival of public golf in its American birthplace If Ed Brockner had been alive in 1888, he would have been in the Apple Tree Gang. In the spring of that year, Scotsman John Reid and two of his friends played the first recorded round of golf in…
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THE MIDWEST MACKENZIE – CRYSTAL DOWNS
An in-depth look at the collaboration of Dr. Alister MacKenzie and Perry Maxwell at Crystal Downs C.C. Crystal Downs is not Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s only Midwest design, but it is certainly his most highly regarded work in the region. The greatness of the course can be linked to the interest and variety inherent in the…
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TILLIE’S TALE AT SOMERSET HILLS
An in-depth look at the A.W. Tillinghast designed Somerset Hills Country Club Somerset Hills embodies a rare opportunity for golf architecture aficionados and players alike. For the design enthusiast, it is a course to be studied closely as an integral step in the progression of one of America’s greatest architects, A.W. Tillinghast. This pivotal work…