... and it centers around his new book entitled Golf in the Lowcountry.
From a historical perspective, I have always understood that golf was first played in the United States was in South Carolina, which never made much sense given its lack of 100 + year old courses along the coast. Rather, don't you think of golf in South Carolina for how it has developed so many fine modern courses along its coast over the past 30 years? Living in NC, I cry
when comparing how golf has NOT progressed along the North Carolina coast.
In Golf in the Lowcountry, Joel writes over 30 "course discourses" on public, private and resort courses from the Hilton Head, Dafuskie, Bluffton, Beaufort, and Savannah areas. Works by a great variety of architects ranging from Bob Cupp to Pete Dye to Coore & Crenshaw are included. Less architecturally based topics are covered as well as Joel tries to capture life in the Lowcountry (personality profiles on Davis Love and the tennis great Stan Smith for instance).
Certainly, retirement living and second homes have largely driven the course construction boom in the Lowcountry. In his Feature Interview, we talk about why some housing courses work so much better than others.
Regional books like Joel's have inherent interest as the merits of courses that are linked by common features (in this case, flat land) can be readily compared and contrasted. As an aside, doing such a book on the inland courses around London would highlight how some heath courses like Walton Heath are being true to their heath origin while other such 'heath' courses have been allowed to become parkland in nature through unchecked tree growth.
Hopefully, Joel will do another South Carolina book and this time tackle the northern part of the coastline including Kiawah, Charleston, and Myrtle Beach. But in the meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy reading Joel's take on the pros and cons of golf in this part of the country, where so many of us are are sooner or later drawn to play.
Cheers,