Feature Interview with Robert Price is posted

[Ran Morrissett]

Golf architecture can be a study for a lifetime as there are so many different levels to explore.

Take Robert Price. When he penned Scotland's Golf Courses in 1989, Robert brought an altogether unique approach to a golf book as it was written from the perspective of a geologist and geographer. The original book featured 425 courses and among other things, explained the variety of landforms (links, raised marine platforms, drumlins, hillside, etc.) and vegetations (woodland, parkland, moorland, links) found in courses across Scotland.

Spurred on by the book's cult-like popularity, Robert added golf course consultant to his other job titles though the 1990s. This year, he has updated Scotland's Golf Courses to include information on the 538 courses that existed in Scotland at the time of going to press in 2002. This second edition went on sale last month in the UK and information on how to acquire it is included at the end of his Feature Interview.

Hope you enjoy this different perspective of how to look at - and appreciate - the features on golf courses.

Cheers,

[Paul Daley]

Ran:

Terrific job in securing this interview with the golfing landform/geomorphology guru. Dr Price is the first and
last word in his field.

[Jeff Mingay]

Yet another excellent interview provided by GolfClubAtlas.com... where else could we find interviews with people like Dr. Price and Jim Urbina, for example? No where. Great stuff, Ran!  

I'm looking very much forward to ordering and receiving the 2nd edition of Dr. Price's book.

[RJ_Daley]

I wonder if Dr. Price ever visited Wisconsin?  We have a bonanza of golf courses, many from the period 1905-1940 that were woven in and out of the terminal morraine lines that traverse our state.  We have a State park that is in two distinct northern and southern sections called Kettle Morraine State part that covers nearly 1/3 of the length of our State and there must be over 50 golf courses that are sited among the landforms using drumlin, eskers, fluvian washout tracks from melting gracier etc. (forgive spelling and exact terminology). I have looked at many tracts of such land with high incidences of such land forms.  Generally, I found that with all the wshed rock within the eskers and drumlins, that earth movement and shaping would be too expensive.  Without enough rock picking and top soil conditioning, you get many fairways that have rocks constantly rising up and ruining your clubs when you hit them ( a common occurance in those parts of glacial Wisconsin).  But, I once looked at a site on the edge of the Kettle Morraine park that had 22 free flowing artesian wells pouring out 2.5 million gallons a day that fed man made trout ponds which was not more than 10 miles from Blackwolf Run.  Just too many damn rocks!    I should have gotten into the bottled water biz instead... :-/

I love the subject and must get Dr. Price's book.

[Brian Phillips]

My friend Graeme Webster used to be a director/architect/owner of Glen Andrews Ltd. which designed and constructed Meldrum House just outside Aberdeen.  

Graeme admires Dr. Price and says he is not only a very nice gentleman but is one of the most professional men he has had the honour of working with.

Nice interview Ran.

Cheers Brian

[Dunlop_White]

Ran,

Thanks! Refreshing interview from an interesting perspective! I do not have a copy of either edition, but I will.

[Dan King]

I have a few thousand golf books all over my room. Book cases and stacks everywhere. Many times I'll spend hours searching for a title (I'm working on putting them in a database and on the web.)  But there is one book I can always find, that book is Robert Price's Scotland's Golf Courses. Well written and authoritative, it is a must have for anyone interested in golf courses.

I'll be ordering the new version. I bought the original in the Dornoch bookstore. Maybe I need to make another trip to pick up the new version.


Dan King
dking@danking.org

"Every other game is played on the same kind of pitch the world over. One football field is like another; one cricket pitch like the next, except that in once case the background may be the village chestnut and in another the gasometers.
"Yet not only is every golfing pitch different from all others, but it consists of 18 little pitches within itself. Thus an almost inexhaustible supply of golfing problems presents itself."
 --Robert Price quoting Henry Longhurst in the Preface to Scotland's Golf Courses