Ian Andrew, long-time poster and gentleman extraordinaire received a great piece of press from Lorne Rubenstein today. Brad Klein is also quoted in the article, so I thought it newsworthy to pass along.
Course designer aims to bring back the fun
globeandmail.com
March 2, 2006
LORNE RUBENSTEIN
While the PGA Tour begins its four-week Florida swing this week at mostly modern and mostly uninteresting courses, a Canadian architect sits in his home office in Toronto, studies the values of the old game that endure and looks forward to articulating them in his own work.
Ian Andrew, 40, worked with golf course designer Doug Carrick for years, but recently went out on his own. "I want to build golf courses that are fun to play," Andrew said this week. "I'd like to find out if it's in me. Deep in my heart, I feel I can build better courses than what's out there."
By "what's out there," Andrew meant many courses built in the past 25 years. He said he and Carrick left on good terms, but that his vision differs from his former employer's. Andrew has written candidly of his views on his new blog, thecaddyshack.blogspot.com, and on his website, andrewgolf.com.
"I've watched the guys I play hockey with go from avid golfers playing 20-to-30 times a year to becoming occasional players the last five years," Andrew wrote on his blog. "Golf needs to realize that the massive build-out of strictly high-end courses that occurred in Toronto the last five years is not good for the game. It drove the prices up -- and the players away."
Andrew feels he has a better way, a less expensive and invasive way. He enjoyed Muskoka Bay Golf Club, the last course he worked on with Carrick, in cottage country north of Toronto, because it didn't involve as much earth-moving as he's seen in recent years. But that, Andrew wrote, was because the amount of rock on the site didn't allow for massive amounts of earth-moving.
Andrew worked for Carrick for 17 years, and realized five years ago that he wasn't building the courses he wanted to. He said the decision he made to go on his own was in the end a simple one, and that he had to make the break and start his own company. Already he's had one major disappointment, when a project in St. Catharines, Ont., on a crinkly, rumpled property that seemed to be moving ahead fell through.
Certainly he's entering a tricky area, simply because of all the big names who dominate the business. Those names include Tom Fazio, Jack Nicklaus, Rees Jones and Greg Norman. Developers who want their clients, potential golfers and members to recognize names hire these fellows, notwithstanding their fees that can approach $2-million (U.S.).
"The niche [Andrew's] after is very small," Brad Klein, an architectural critic and close friend, said yesterday from Oklahoma City, Okla. "Doak, Crenshaw and Coore and Hanse are the go-to guys in that style. The fact is that golf course construction is one-third of what it used to be [not long ago]. Sixty per cent of the projects are real estate-based, and the owners play it safe with those and go with the big names.
"If the real-estate guys are doing a third or fourth course and they want something different, they'll go to Crenshaw and Coore or Doak or Hanse," Klein said. "Or owners of private clubs might build the kinds of courses they do, but it's a very small slice of the market. I'm speaking from a businessman's perspective, not making a judgment on the style of the courses. Those guys have captured that market."
Klein works for GolfWeek magazine, and runs its rankings of top courses. He said 14 new courses appeared on its most recent top 100 list in the United States, and that five would qualify as the sorts of courses Andrew likes. Hanse, Doak and Crenshaw and Coore designed those five. "Nobody else," Klein emphasized.
Andrew is undaunted. He hopes his blog, to which he's committed himself for a year at least of daily postings, will attract attention, and he's encourage by the response he's received already. Meanwhile, he's put in a proposal to do a restoration of the Scarboro Golf and Country Club, an east Toronto course that George Cumming designed and A.W. Tillinghast later changed considerably. It has the potential, properly restored, to be one of the truly great classic courses not only in Canada, but anywhere. As Andrew said: "The bones are there."
Andrew has had some fascinating and informative discussions with Coore. He reads widely on course architecture, and has visited about 20 classic courses to enhance and expand his knowledge. He's ready to show what he's learned, and what he's confident he can do.
For now, he waits for the phone to ring. He waits, he blogs, and he believes, in himself, and a fun rather than frantic and overdone style of golf that the game sorely needs.