Here is the aforementioned article, minus a few pictures.....
Cult Classic
Tom Doak's book of course reviews is coveted
by golfers -- in part because he pulls no punches
By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP
June 12, 2006; Page R13
Long before Tom Doak became a renowned designer of golf courses, he trotted around the globe critiquing them.
While a landscape-architecture student back in the 1980s, Mr. Doak started playing or walking through hundreds of golf courses throughout North America, the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand -- and took photographs and notes on each course's design. He later parlayed those notes and pictures into a travelogue-type book titled "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses."
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In the book, Mr. Doak reviewed the design features of more than 800 courses, from little-known links to some of the world's most famous and exclusive courses. He gave each a ranking of zero to 10 on what he called the Doak Scale. A zero, Mr. Doak wrote, is "a course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind." But a 10 is "nearly perfect.... If you haven't seen all the courses in this category, you don't know how good golf architecture can get."
Mr. Doak never imagined it back then, but the book has become a cult classic -- a haven of bluntness in a sport that is often so clubby that it rarely criticizes itself. Its fame stems in part from the fact that only about 13,000 copies were printed back in the '90s and the book has been out of print for years. Due to the scarcity, available copies of the most recent edition are going for as much as $350.
No Encore
But while Mr. Doak's strong opinions resonate with golfers, they also have put him in somewhat of an awkward spot: Mr. Doak is now a high-profile part of the establishment he once unabashedly critiqued. And it's that reality that keeps him from reprinting or updating the sought-after book.
"I pulled no punches at all," Mr. Doak says in an interview. "I'm not sure I want to put myself in that position now."
RARE CANDOR In a clubby sport, Mr. Doak's guide stands out
Mr. Doak began playing golf as a child while traveling on business trips with his father. By the age of nine, he was hitting balls on the driving range. And it was during his studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., that Mr. Doak began visiting courses and taking notes and photographs.
After graduating from Cornell in 1982, Mr. Doak won a $5,000 scholarship that allowed him to spend a year in the British Isles. He put 13,000 miles on his used Fiat, going from one golf course to another. "I never slept in my car, but I sort of lived out of my car," he says. At one point he worked with the grounds crew at St. Andrews, a Scottish landmark and one of the world's oldest courses.
"I'd literally just ask in every town, 'Is there something down the road I should see?' " he says.
One path took him to the Addington, a course built in 1912 that today is a half-hour train and taxi ride from London's teeming financial district. The course, designed by J.F. Abercromby, is a classic, Mr. Doak later wrote in his book. "Its shot values are just as starkly defined as the transition from the fairway cut to a fearsome primary rough: either a shot is good enough or it isn't, and the course is the sole arbiter of justice."
He included the Addington in his "gourmet's choice" of 31 courses. (Mr. Doak says he picked 31 because he likes Baskin-Robbins and the ice-cream maker's original marketing pitch of 31 flavors.)
In 1983, Mr. Doak returned to the U.S. and went to work for Pete Dye, one of the game's top architects, whom Mr. Doak credits today for helping start his career.
Sparing No One
And he kept visiting courses. In October 1984, he visited Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow, Okla. He gave it a 4 on the Doak scale and noted, "If the place has any character at all, I missed it. All I got from walking it was heat prostration."
AWKWARD SPOT As a course designer, Mr. Doak is now part of the establishment he critiqued
In 1986, Mr. Doak played the course at the Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook, Ill., and then offered to show club members slides of other courses he had visited. The next thing club member Bill Shean knew, Mr. Doak was unpacking some 2,000 slides and a projector from his car.
"Tom was introverted back then," Mr. Shean says. "He put those slides up there and he became a different person.... It was a fascinating evening."
But the warm hospitality at Butler didn't mean the course wouldn't come in for criticism. Mr. Doak gave Butler a 6 and wrote: "Many of the individual holes are less than memorable, and a couple of the ones that are, are so because they're impossible."
Even legendary golf architect Tom Fazio wasn't spared. Mr. Doak dismissed as "vapid" Mr. Fazio's greens at the White Columns Country Club near Atlanta. "Clearly designed to impress the worst stereotype of the typical Atlanta yuppie golfer," Mr. Doak wrote.
But he did include Mr. Fazio's Shadow Creek course in Las Vegas on his list of 31. "I just hope that someday I have the opportunity to surpass it," Mr. Doak wrote of Shadow Creek, which was built in 1989 for casino owner Steve Wynn.
Asked about his critique, Mr. Doak says in an email: "I have high expectations for the best modern golf architects, and if they build a course that isn't too interesting, I believe someone should say something instead of giving them -- including me -- a free pass." Of White Columns, Mr. Doak says he saw the course only one time and "it's possible I missed something."
Mr. Fazio says he hasn't read the book but his team has read some of the comments about White Columns. He says he told his employees that Mr. Doak has a right to voice his views. "You can say whatever you want to say," Mr. Fazio says. "You don't have to agree with them."
Time to Write
In 1986, Mr. Doak quit Mr. Dye's firm to start his own design company. He says this is when he also had time to write the book.
He started typing his thoughts on the approximately 800 courses. He printed out initial copies of the book on a dot-matrix printer and sent the bound first edition to 40 people who had helped him along the way, as well as to his father. A second small printing followed in 1989.
"A couple [of people] were surprised or concerned that I was that critical of some golf courses," Mr. Doak says.
Scott Pool, a fellow architect who had worked with Mr. Doak, says it was typical Tom Doak. "He was very young and critical, and he called it like he saw it," says Mr. Pool, who lives in Atlanta. "He didn't butter it up."
Soon, pirated copies of the book began to make the rounds. This prompted Mr. Doak in 1994 to privately print 1,000 copies. As one way to make money, he later agreed to publish an illustrated edition with Sleeping Bear Press in Chelsea, Mich. The 361-page book came out in 1996, priced at $45.
Luke Reese, a private-equity executive in Chicago, says he and his friends exchanged the book as a Christmas gift in 1996. Then in 1997, they spent a year competing to see who could collect the most points based on the Doak Scale. Playing a course rating, say, a 5 would earn them five points.
"Tom Doak actually sent me a framed letter congratulating me on accumulating the most Doak points," says Mr. Reese, who collected more than 150. He says he doesn't always agree with Mr. Doak but appreciates that at least he is honest.
In the late 1990s, the book went out of print, in part because Mr. Doak decided not to revise it. Mr. Doak says that by then, he was building his reputation as an architect and was concerned how such a book would be perceived by fellow architects. His contract with Sleeping Bear specified that the rights reverted to the author after the book was out of print for two years, so Mr. Doak took over the publishing rights.
But perceptions don't seem to have hurt Mr. Doak's ability to get work. Ted Lennon, the senior vice president of Lowe Destination Development Inc., a Los Angeles developer, calls Mr. Doak's book influential. "I agreed with his thought process," says Mr. Lennon, who hired Mr. Doak to design Stone Eagle Golf Club in Palm Desert, Calif. But the key, Mr. Lennon says, is that Mr. Doak spent hours in broiling heat walking the canyons and ravines of the land for Stone Eagle's 6,801-yard course, instead of just relying on a topography map.
Restaurateur Jeff Shearer says he hired Mr. Doak to design the Lost Dunes course just outside Chicago because he liked Mr. Doak's minimalist approach and hands-on style. Lost Dunes is a 6,875-yard private course.
Mr. Doak's other designs include Pacific Dunes, just outside Bandon, Ore., and the Cape Kidnappers course in New Zealand. He worked with Jack Nicklaus on Sebonack Golf Club, which opened last month in Southampton, N.Y.
Pricey Reference
Today, those who own the book -- and are willing to part with it -- want a price comparable to the cost of a round at Pebble Beach. Booksellers offering it through Amazon.com want as much as $350.
John Sabino, the owner of Valuable Book Group in Princeton Junction, N.J., an Internet-based rare-book dealer that specializes in golf books, says owners of "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses" tend to hold on to the book as a reference guide. He says the book is exceptionally frank, setting it apart in a field where "everybody says every course is great."
Mr. Sabino says he recently sold a copy of the 1996 version for $250. And he has a copy of the first edition that Mr. Doak professionally printed listed for $950.