Dr. Bradley S. Klein's Wide Open Fairways Now Available!

[Tommy Naccarato]

Brad Klein's newest, Wide Open Fairways: A Journey across the Landscapes of Modern Golf is now available from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wide-open-fairways-bradley-s-klein/1115198835?ean=9780803240377 (click on for direct link)

I've been fortunate to read some of the chapters of the book and it is, like all of Brad's writings is a compelling look at every aspect of course designs in New York, the Prairie states and beyond.

Overview
In golf the playing field is also landscape, where nature and the shaping of it conspire to test athletic prowess. As golf courses move away from the “big business, pristine lawn” approach of recent times, Bradley S. Klein, a leading expert on golf course design and economics, finds much to contemplate, and much to report, in the way these wide-open spaces function as landscapes that inspire us, stimulate our senses, and reveal the special nature of particular places.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Brad Klein's newest, Wide Open Fairways: A Journey across the Landscapes of Modern Golf is now available from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wide-open-fairways-bradley-s-klein/1115198835?ean=9780803240377 (click on for direct link)

I've been fortunate to read some of the chapters of the book and it is, like all of Brad's writings is a compelling look at every aspect of course designs in New York, the Prairie states and beyond, explaining how our new courses are more akin to cultural landmarks. I highly recommend it!

Hyperlink fixed above and below. 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wide-open-fairways-bradley-s-klein/1115198835?ean=9780803240377 (click on for direct link)

[Dan Herrmann]

ISBN numbers:
ISBN-10: 0803240376
ISBN-13: 978-0803240377

[Eric Smith]

Thanks for the heads up, Tommy. Cover shot's nice.

[John Kavanaugh]

Tommy,

Congrats on a impressive thank you in the acknowledgements section.  Your consistent contributions to the eduction of golfers never ceases to amaze me!!!

[Brad Klein]

Tommy was very helpful, as usual, on graphics. Though also on inspiration, tone and pitching it to a certain informed audience. I don't think his behind-the-scenes role on modern golf course design is widely enough known or appreciated.

[PCCraig]

Brad,

Any chance you would be willing to sell signed copies like with the recent edition of the Donald Ross book?

[John Kavanaugh]

I'd pay huge bucks to get that cover signed by both Brad and Nicklaus. 

[Brad Klein]

PCraig, email me or send me a message via GCA.

John, it's an Aidan Bradley photo, if we get his permission and work through CJ I'm sure Jack is dying to sign for you.

[John Kavanaugh]

Brad,

What role did you play in choosing that picture?  I didn't even recognize the hole. Seems like putting a picture of the Starship Enterprise on the next J.K. Rowling novel.

[Jason Topp]

Picture book or mainly text?

[John Kavanaugh]

Picture book or mainly text?

Jason,

Go to Amazon where they give you a taste.  The book appears to be a very thoughtful and informative look into how modern architecture has evolved.  I would be shocked if a single member of this site would not love every page.

[Brad Klein]

Mainly text, limited B&W photography. It's part memoir of growing up caddying and escaping a crazy NYC upbringing, then travelogue as I take readers out to New Mexico, North Dakota, and the wide open spaces of the American West and elsewhere.

There's a long chapter on Sand Hills, Dismal River and the spirit of the American prairie -- thus the cover and the tie-in to University of Nebraska Press. Also a chapter on what it was like to be accompany Doak, Urbina & Keiser as they did Old Macdonald. A detailed account of Trump and NYC municipal golf, and also a chapter on what it took to build a Pete Dye-Tim Liddy designed muni in my home town here in CT. Ends with a piece on the psychology of restoration.

For those of you who (still) get Golfweek, they ran an excerpt of the Old Macdonald and restoration psychology chapters in the July 19 issue.

[ChipOat]

Ah, The Emperor returns.

[Greg Taylor]

Well, I have just had a quick look/see on amazon.com....

Very philosophical... And let me say as someone who studied philosophy at university, never ever did I think I would see John Locke and GCA in the same book.

Brad, I never really dug Two Treaties on Government... however if you want to talk John Rawls' A Theory of Justice I'm all ears. And thanks for solving my query earlier...!

[Brad Klein]

Greg,

Gear up. I took an undergraduate seminar focused exclusively on Rawls, though 40 years ago. As for Locke, I taught his works for a decade in Modern Political Theory. Like I said in our emails, a liberal-utilitarian view of land as resource to be manipulated at will by man in an effort to overcome scarcity and natural impoverishment would yield a very different golf course than something built from a more communitarian or naturalistic point of view that regards the land as sacred, or as valuable unto itself independent of its utility to man.

In writing about Nebraska and the enduring, overwhelming power of raw land, I was actually inspired by the works of early 20th century novelist Willa Cather, whose books (mainly "My Antonia" and "O Pioneers") I weave in to an account of golf there.

[BCrosby]

Brad -

Interesting about Rawls, who I knew a little. The Rawlsian question would be "What kind of golf course would you design from behind the "veil of ignorance""?  That is, if you didn't know your skill level as a golfer, what kind of architecture would you prefer?
 
It sounds like a question that any architect worth his salt should ask in any event, whether or not he had ever heard of Rawls.  I'm pretty sure Rawls didn't gave the question much thought. 

Bob

[ed_getka]

Brad,
   Congrats on your latest effort. I look forward to getting a copy soon.

[Pete_Pittock]

Book tour?  You can weave in red eye flights, mid-day golf and evening book signings. Invite the local golf writers and convert them to F&F.

[William_G]

good start to the book albeit somewhat cathartic yet enlightening

love the philosophical references including the comment in Ch. 1 "Sense of Place", that suburbia is "The Geography of Nowhere" (which is actually a title of a book

yet, no doubt the philosophy is looking to be serious in that another quote:

I found that when I am somewhere that looks and feels like it's one place
and could not be anywhere else
I know that I am in someplace that's special

 

[Greg Taylor]

Brad -

Interesting about Rawls, who I knew a little. The Rawlsian question would be "What kind of golf course would you design from behind the "veil of ignorance""?  That is, if you didn't know your skill level as a golfer, what kind of architecture would you prefer?
 
It sounds like a question that any architect worth his salt should ask in any event, whether or not he had ever heard of Rawls.  I'm pretty sure Rawls didn't gave the question much thought. 

Bob

The "veil of ignorance" - it's all coming back now....

So Lockean man would have the course designed based upon a contract whereby the utility dervived would be greater than the cost.

And Rawlsian man would presumably have designed Augusta given Mackenzie's (or was it Jones or Roberts?) quote about the course being just as playable for a high handicapper as a pro.

Hobbesian man, I would venture, would have loved Pine Valley. Each hole secluded, not other man around to upset the apple cart. And very penal in keeping with man's life, ("nasty, brutish and short").

Now, where Robert Nozick have played given his Anarchy, State and Utopia...? I have no idea!

[David Harshbarger]

Brad -

Interesting about Rawls, who I knew a little. The Rawlsian question would be "What kind of golf course would you design from behind the "veil of ignorance""?  That is, if you didn't know your skill level as a golfer, what kind of architecture would you prefer?
 
It sounds like a question that any architect worth his salt should ask in any event, whether or not he had ever heard of Rawls.  I'm pretty sure Rawls didn't gave the question much thought.  

Bob

The "veil of ignorance" - it's all coming back now....

So Lockean man would have the course designed based upon a contract whereby the utility dervived would be greater than the cost.

And Rawlsian man would presumably have designed Augusta given Mackenzie's (or was it Jones or Roberts?) quote about the course being just as playable for a high handicapper as a pro.

Hobbesian man, I would venture, would have loved Pine Valley. Each hole secluded, not other man around to upset the apple cart. And very penal in keeping with man's life, ("nasty, brutish and short").

Now, where Robert Nozick have played given his Anarchy, State and Utopia...? I have no idea!

 J.R. "Bob" Dobbsian man wouldn't build a course, but is always there to fill out your foursome on the best course in town.  

[Josh Bills]

Brad,

Looking forward to the book.  I was able to meet you (in Columbus, Ohio at the OTF convention) and have you sign two Ross books that I gave as gifts to my father and father-in-law who both thoroughly enjoyed them, as did I.  Best of luck.

Josh

[Britt Rife]

And J.R. "Bob" Dobbsian man wouldn't build a course, but is always there to fill out your foursome on the best course in town. 

References to JR Bob Dobbs and a pro-Raynor tag line?  My kind of fellow.

[Jud_T]

At the risk of being heretical, are there plans for an e-book version?