I wrote this in 2008. This was my take on what I consider “my era” at that moment.
It took the highlights of what happened over those decades.
1970-1980 The Brand Name
This era was the initial sign of the future rise of the celebrity or “brand-named” designer. The first “name” designer was Jack Nicklaus, the designer of Glen Abbey Golf Course in Oakville, who remains even through to today the best known of the “brand-name” designers – those golf architects who are recognizable by name. His eventual successful transition from player to architect ushered in the next great architectural trend – one that remains prevalent today – the trend to hire a “brand name” designer to design a new course. Nicklaus’s serious interest began with his visits to The Golf Club to see what Pete Dye was building. While he struggled with many of the ideas that Pete had, he certainly became increasingly interested enough to get eventually involved with Pete - as only a consultant - at Harbour Town in South Carolina. Harbour Town turned out to be ground breaking and the flash point to beginning a new trend in golf course architecture. Harbour Town may have been the symbolic end to the Trent Jones era even though he and many others continued to build in that style long after the popularity had declined.
In 1973, Jack would work with Desmond Muirhead to develop Muirfield Village Golf Club, the new home for his Mermorial Tournament. The plan involved a tournament course - loosely based upon Augusta National - and a housing community built around the outside of the course largely to finance the project. Muirhead planned the community and (according to most) routed the golf course. Desmond was a man with unusual ideas - and likely frustrated Jack – and they parted ways before the course was built. Jack hired Bob Cupp and Jay Morrish to be his staff and to see the course through to completion. Jay Morrish was the on site architect for Muirfield Village. The course displayed Jack’s ideas about play and aesthetics which he stuck with until the last decade or so where he softened his demands on players and began to build courses that were a little more player friendly. With the success of the Memorial Tournament and the high praise for the course, Jack Nicklaus was in high demand right from the outset. He would become one of the most prolific golf architects in this era.
Pete Dye was definitely the rising star in golf architecture circles during the 1970’s. The decade began with Harbour Town, which immediately attracted golfer’s imagination during the Heritage Tournament. They were enthralled by his courses that looked so different than anything else they had seen. The timber banks, waste bunkers, pot bunkers, tiny greens, use of accent grasses in the bunkers, tight fairways, etc. This looked nothing like there course and golfers traveled in droves to see this magical place. This happened because this was the decade where televised golf took off with large ratings brought upon by stars like Jack Nicklaus. The public was now exposed to all these new courses through their television and this exposure was responsible for the rise of Pete Dye.
1980-1990 - The Road to Excess
This happens to be the era I care for the least. It began with Pete Dye building a new tournament course called The Tournament Players Club of Sawgrass. This was part of a grandiose dream of Deane Beaman to build tournament courses belonging to the players where the average guy could pony up some significant dollars to go tee it up on the same courses. The players would begin a slow and steady investment in these courses and would reap major profits down the road. They would even joint venture these with resorts and housing developments to bring in a bigger return. They would rule the world……well IMG would do a much more efficient job later, but that’s another story. The TPC courses (beyond Sawgrass), built using player consultants, are largely forgettable courses that have all gone under massive renovation.
AT Sawgrass, Pete took a lousy property that was barely above water table and covered with bush, and slowly turn it into a brilliant piece of architecture and engineering. The course was based around most of his ideas involving smaller wilder greens, strategic placement of tee shots, clever strategic choices, but where it went two full steps further than his previous work was the addition of so much water directly into play. Pete had made the decision that the only way “to get those dudes thinking” was to use the finality of water as a way to make them blink. The ultimate statement of this was the island green built at #17, which came about by accident. This was the best source of sand on the site and they over mined it in order to cap all the fairways - and found there peninsula green had become….an island green. Once in play, they knew they had created the perfect tournament hole and a place the players feared from the opening tee shot. He had those dudes thinking and Pete Dye was in control.
Another architect who also would go on to embody the word “control” was Tom Fazio. Like Pete, the more courses he created, the more he wanted to control the site. Tom began with his uncle George Fazio creating tough layouts like the National in Toronto, but would eventually go on his own and create a very player friendly style that would define him as an architect. While Pete was into carry angles and deception, Tom preferred defining bunkers and a clear path to the hole. Tom seemed to be more concerned with hiding cart paths and grading tie-ins than he was about creating dilemmas. If anything, much of Tom’s work can be characterized as too safe and too fair to be great. Mackenzie always theorized that great holes began with initial controversy until they were understood - Fazio avoided controversy in favour of making a beautiful player friendly landscape.
The ultimate expression of his ability and style was Shadow Creek built in 1989. The course built for Steve Wynn in the desert and was a remarkable undertaking. Fazio began with a flat featureless site and moved millions of yards of sand. He then planted a massive amount of pine trees and landscaped the entire proprety to create a lush oasis with ravines amd wonderful rolls where you could only see the mountains in the distance but none of the flat desert right next door. The course is stunningly beautiful.
Bill Coore once remarked that "Fazio was golf's greatest Landscape Architect."
1990 – 2000 The Decade of Contrasts
This is one of the most interesting decades due to the explosive divisions in architectural philosophy practiced by a series of high profile architects.
You have Rees Jones continuing on the legacy of his father with his new work like Atlantic Golf Club. His renovation work at Bethpage Black and other famous layouts provides him with the “Open Doctor” moniker just like his dad had and he become the USGA’s go to guy – like his dad. Nicklaus continues to work on hundreds of projects with many being outside the US, but gets into financial problems with the development and construction arm of his company. Pete Dye becomes the very antithesis of his early origins, while he continues with the remarkable design ideas that brought him to prominence; he now shapes and moves everything – a far cry from The Golf Club. His courses are still strategically excellent and fascinating, but the work lacks the same charm of the early courses. This culminates at Whistling Straights where he takes an average albeit lakefront property and moves millions of yards of earth to build a stunning “links” layout with so many bunkers that nobody has ever counted them.
Mike Strantz, who had previously worked for Tom Fazio, was an architect walking completely out of step with all other – to my delight. The first signs of his genius are with a small tight property at Caledonia where he builds a remarkably clever and interesting layout that is a little different looking and playing than what people are used to. But there was so much more to come when you listen to this quote from an interview, “It is important to make the golf hole look more difficult than it really is. That is almost always the case on our courses, but if your mind convinces you that it really is a difficult shot, you’re beat before you even take the club back.” Caledonia was tricky in places but when he built Tobacco Road he built the most intimidating and controversial course constructed in recent time. This course is either loved or hated. I personally think this is because the course needs to be understood and respected before you can try out play it. The course uses large doses of intimidation – including blind shots – to overwhelm the player into playing in fear. The course also has width and short cuts galore to encourage a risky style of play, add this all up and you have one of the most unique and entertaining courses I have played. His work eventually softened culminating with his last course - the sublime Monterey Peninsula Shore Course - but one thing you can say about Mike’s work is that it was always interesting.
The final prominent architect of the decade is Bill Coore. Bill began working with Pete Dye as a superintendent but became interested in architecture working on a few smaller jobs. He became involved with Ben Crenshaw and began to design so very lay of the land layouts with lots of interesting ground options and alternate strategies. The work caught immediate attention for the enjoyment in created when you played the courses. Everything changed overnight when they were asked to do Sand Hills in the middle of the Sand Hill country in Nebraska. Sand Hill was an exceptional property. Coore and Crenshaw showed the patience to walk and walk the property until they had found the right routing. While 100’s of perfect holes were available, they walked until they found a routing that would work, without having to disturb any of the natural site. Many of the hazards are natural blow outs, and others that were created to look like they were also blow outs too. The course is like Prairie Dunes where the line between golf and nature is blurred. The golf course is a perfect reflection of the site, has a perfect set of holes and will be this era’s greatest course.
Coore and Crenshaw caught everyone’s attention and ultimately ushered in a new movement called Minimalism. It may have originated with Pete Dye, and been actually rooted in the Golden Age, but it was Coore and Crenshaw that really made the architecturally statement that this movement was going to change architecture. They built their ultimate expression at Sand Hills and then followed it up with a series of wonderful examples on many sites around the country. Decades later their style has had such an influence that it was copied by many architects including Nicklaus and Fazio.
2000 – 2007 Minimalism becomes Popular
Coore and Crenshaw have established themselves as the best architects in practice – their reputation clearly eclipses former decade leaders Fazio and Dye. Both are still busy, but people have found Fazio too predictable and Dye to…well….to unpredictable. A new crop of designers have also emerged to take over from the previous generation and while a few practice a version of modern design, most practice a style similar to Coore and Crenshaw. This style has been given the name “Minimalism” and this has become the new buzzword in golf design – it’s the name of the movement that defines this decade. The trend appears to be very firmly rooted and will quite likely be the defining trend for the near future.
Minimalism is actually a lousy term for what the movement really is since it was incorrectly named for the assumption of no earth movement in these new “retro” designs. The new movement is more a return to the roots of golf design. The latest crop of architects are choosing to ignore almost anything done recently and instead look all the way back to the work of the Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture. They are influenced by Colt and Mackenzie, rather than by Nicklaus or Fazio. They love early Pete Dye but have little regard for his latest work. They all love Bill Coore and want to build courses like he does. He has become the benchmark for this generation, their inspiration and often their mentor too.
So why is this style better than modern or post modern? It’s the playing experience itself. Golden Age Design is about freedom and discovery. Modernism or Post-Modernism tends to tell you what to do and where to go. Golden Age design invites you to gamble or “to shoot the bones for the whole works,” but also provides you with the freedom to take any route, including a tentative longer route to avoid risk. The great Golden Age layouts always compel you to take on greater risk than you should.
While architects like Gil Hanse, Mike DeVries, and others have create wonderful and interesting layouts, the architect who has moved to the forefront to take on Coore and Crenshaw is Tom Doak. Doak is to some a controversial figure due to his strong opinions and Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, but without question one very talented designer. Tom made his name initially with his writing and opinions and back them up with a very interesting first course called High Pointe, but his work at Pacific Dunes was his coming out party. The course received immediate comparisons to Cypress Point for its architecture, stetting and unusual hole sequences. The course was shorter than normal, wider than most, but brilliant in the use of the environment and the land to create a series of very compelling holes. Doak followed that up with a series of spectacular sea side courses in Australia, New Zealand and in the US. His work is comparable to the work of Coore and Crenshaw in both playing style and aesthetics – and now in quality too. There is no question he is clearly influenced by the work of Coore and Crenshaw – the question now is can he surpass it.
In the original piece about the future I assumed Tiger would buy out Fazio and assume his business.
But a little car accident and "small" banking crisis changed it all, so I was wrong.
I eventually wrote this at the end of 2010 looking out at the next decade.
2010 -2020 What will Happen this Decade
The economic fallout from the Banking Crisis did more to change golf architecture than fashion or popularity. This decade will see only a handful of well financed, well thought out, realistic business models getting built. The Minimalist movement will completely dominate golf course architecture since it makes more economic sense and continues to garner critical support. Golf is in recession and this will be a the final catalyst for a change in styles.
Golf will continue go through hard times this decade but eventually there will be more building. As with all new cycles it will begin with more sensible economic models. The more ambitious projects won't come till the end of the decade. The driving force in new projects will no longer be real estate – ending the dominance of the brand name designer.
I originally assumed that Tiger Woods was to become the biggest designer in the game, but between the change in economics and his transgressions, there's now a better than even chance he does not build a course this decade. The dominant architect of this decade is going to be someone who is busy even now. He will have a small office, loves to run a dozer and would be classified a minimalist. His influence is the philosophies and principles of the Golden Age. I would predict that it's going to be Gil Hanse.