Which architect has done the most to encourage new golfers?

[Roger Wolfe]

This is an interesting thread.  I interpreted the original question much different than everyone who has posted.  When I think “new golfer” I think “bad golfer.”  In my experience, frustration is the biggest factor that keeps a new golfer from sticking with the game.

In this sense, I vote for Donald Ross.  I knew very little about Ross before I started working at a Ross club except for Payne Stewart and the 1999 US Open.  Since then I have played close to fifty Ross designs.  The common Ross features… flat bottom bunkers, big greens with open access in front, greens sloping front to back… minimal use of bunkers.  These keep a bad golfer in the game.

Kris Spence renovated our course in 2008 and brought back a lot of what Ross put into the original layout.  He always said, “It will be harder for a scratch golfer to score… but easier for a bad golfer to play.”  He was dead on and I have seen the same characteristics at his other courses.

For example, Nicklaus courses are miserable if you can’t hit a high fade.  RTJ likes to put bunkers in front and behind the greens so someone who doesn’t strike a high iron gets stuck in the front bunker or the back bunker every hole (like me in Manassas in 1995).  Strantz greens are big and open but the pain and suffering you go through to even reach the green makes them miserable if you are not playing well… or a new golfer.

My post might not address the topic at hand… but I thank Mr. Ross for his wisdom and talent.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Eddie Hackett designed a lot of Irish courses for very little payment. He enabled clubs that probably wouldn't have been able to afford an architect, to establish simple but very playable layouts.

[Ian Andrew]

The two Bills,  Diddel and Amick.

Jim excellent choices.
What's cool about Mr. Amick is that focus never changed.

Eddie Hackett designed a lot of Irish courses for very little payment. He enabled clubs that probably wouldn't have been able to afford an architect, to establish simple but very playable layouts.

I love this choice too.


In Canada:

Les Furbur
Bob Moote
Robbie Robinson
Rene Murylaert
Howard Watson

They collectively built around 500 course that the public can play.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Roger and Donal's opinions are helpful.

In Britain I suppose the Hawtree family did a lot to further the cause of getting ordinary people started in golf. Certainly the recent Hawtree par-3 and pitch-and-putt courses at Adlington give me far more pleasure than any of our other local pay-and-plays or municipals. In fact I would say that the recent pay-and-plays in our area are mostly thoroughly bad courses. We have no municipal provision, the nearest being Altrincham which is dangerous, but even more dangerous is the municipal at Heaton Park (JH Taylor) which is also a ball swallower (not good for beginners). Happily many of our local members' courses are not in good financial help and many are willing to allow visitors of any kind at attractive green fees.

I played my earliest golf on a Colt course (Lilleshall Hall) which was a real ball-swallower, with a number of ponds and many OOBs on the front nine and deepest forest on the back nine. I didn't know who Colt was until long after I had finished playing there in the 1960s. But from my experiences there I did pick up an inkling of design (from my observant father) which has remained with me ever since. 

[Cliff Hamm]

Instead of speculation or the usual playing favorites, this thread should elicit a bunch of personal responses from the members of this board.

My answer stays the same -- I would never have had a chance to play the game regularly were it not for the course Geoff Cornish built a mile from my family's home, that allowed me to play for $1 in the afternoons.  [For Scott Stearns:  say the same about Tom Fazio!]

So, which architect did the most to encourage YOU to play golf?

I will echo Tom Doak's mention of Geoffrey Cornish.  In Mr. Cornish's own words from a piece about him in Golf and Leisure Cape Cod:  "Today's architects have created the greatest landscape features we've ever seen in golf courses.  But these have crowded out the beginner and guy or gal who doesn't have have $100 for green fees every week...We have to get back to building less expensive courses.

[Matthew Petersen]

I agree with Jeff, his courses seem to be targeted to the top five to ten percent of the highest income bracket of golfers, not really acessible to the average golfer. Golf is like a drug, you don´t wake up and say I am going to start playing golf and buy a 25,000 dollar membership and layout 2,000 in clubs ect. The normal channel is one goes to a driving range several times and then gets brave enough to play a real course, then you buy clubs...maybe second hand becasue your still not sure..you start to hit some decent shots and the crack gets sent to the brain when you do and you want to feel that again, so you play and you hit 120 bad shots and then comes the one good one..ahhhh que lindo. Now you decide you need that high nore often and you start shelling out money! Thats the road most traveled, the road less traveled I would think would be to buy a house on a Fazio course for a imillion plus and then what the hell whats another fifty thousand for a membership and 2,000 for clubs, it happens but not the road most traveled. and for the record, I think most of his courses are great!

Randy,

I agree with you and Jeff. Fazio would likely be my answer to Jeff's thread about the archie doing the most to discourage new players. He builds mostly private or extremely high-end courses that make beginners look at the game and think that it's not available to them.

As for returement golf ... maybe it's grown the game, maybe not. But show me where Fazio is really building mass scale ratirement golf? Out here in AZ, that title goes clearly to Greg Nash, who build 4 courses at Sun City Grand retirement community, most of the courses at the Sun City West community, etc.