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Ran Morrissett

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Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted New
« on: September 14, 2016, 07:41:30 AM »
This is the second time our Feature Interviewee is Mike Clayton. At the time of our October, 2001 Feature Interview, Barnbougle where Mike is the co-architect with Tom Doak and St. Andrews Beach where he was again involved had yet to be built and Mike had not got going in the eastern suburbs of Sydney where his company has transformed The Lakes and Bonnie Doon.

The works of architects who don't take chances are almost by definition going to be tepid. That's not Mike, either in the field or in person. Look at what he pulled off at The Lakes with its bold, gutsy green complexes. Sometimes, like at Royal Adelaide, the work may be may not be embraced but taking chances certainly beats doing the same, safe stuff ad-nauseam, at least in my book. All of us in the States should be THRILLED that the firm of Ogilvy Clayton Cocking Mead is working in Texas. Hopefully, they will fan out to further projects coast to coast from there. They bring with them the attributes that make Australian golf so compelling, namely a heightened appreciation of short grass and width.  Surely, those two things are at the heart of the re-emergence of first-rate architecture over the past twenty years?  Along with St. Andrews, the only course to have NEVER veered away from those design tenets is Royal Melbourne, so it’s not surprising to find Australians doing top-flight work.

When Down Under in February with Joe Andriole, we toured Mike's first course with him. While Ranfurlie doesn't have the vegetation/texture to give it the same visual appeal of the Sandbelt courses, the design was top draw. Angled and canted greens brought subtle strategy to bear.  Standing on many of the tees, the golfer needed to work back from the day's hole location and wind conditions to figure out which side of the fairway he needed to seek from the tee. George Blunt was right to have recommended this as an under the radar stop for architecture fans.

Later, we accompanied Mike around the two courses at Peninsula Kingswood GC where years and years of intelligent work were about to be fully realized. I rate it ahead of Baltusrol now as a 36 hole facility.


Another great par 3 hole is born in the greater Melbourne area!  The above photograph was taken in February 2016 during grow-in of Peninsula Kingswood South.

After touring Peninsula Kingswood, we went to a GCA gathering where Matthew Mollica hit us with ‘When are you going to see Mike’s best greens’ question. Then he trots out a course I had never heard of (RACV Healesville) as a must play! What the heck?!

Joe subsequently played The Lakes and Bonnie Doon and was greatly impressed. He reported back that Bonnie Doon has become so much more than the cramped, uninspired course that I played - once - in the mid-1990s. To Joe's point, look at the photograph in this month's Feature Interview and if you are like me, you will drool!

The point of all that is you get the idea of the penetration that Ogilvy Clayton Cocking Mead is having on the Australian landscape. Suffice to say, there is a lot more compelling golf there now than when I lived there in the 1990s. It’s not just about the sandbelt anymore, that’s for sure.

A constant theme throughout Mike's Feature Interview is that an architect who only asks you to hit it down the middle is creating boring golf. Mike is firmly in the Tom Simpson camp of embracing playing angles. In reading his Interview, I am reminded of our GCA gathering at the wonderful Liphook, where Simpson HATED the long, uphill 12th because it was straightaway sailing down the middle (i.e. thoughtless). Mike's breakdown of the value of the Gil Hanse's Rio design is the best I have read with his description of how Su played the 10th hole being especially telling.

Always sunburnt and generally with sun block on his lips, Mike looks like how an architect should: a man who relishes all time spent outdoors. It most assuredly won't be another 14 years before we do another Feature Interview with Mike Clayton as he and his team are doing some of the best, freshest work out there.

Best,
« Last Edit: September 27, 2016, 11:54:59 AM by Ran Morrissett »

David_Elvins

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2016, 07:02:46 PM »
Nice one Ran and Mike.

I am not sure there has ever been a better before and after photo as the one from Royal Canberra accompanying the interview.

I first met Mike at Ranfurlie not long after it openned.  One of the great mysteries of golf is how he and his companies have never been given another 18 hole course to build in the 15 years since then.

Almost all of Mike and Co.'s work is top class but imo RACV Healesville is the course everyone should see.  There is nothing else like it in the world but there really really should be.
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Mark_F

Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2016, 10:30:42 PM »
One of the great mysteries of golf is how he and his companies have never been given another 18 hole course to build in the 15 years since then.

The answer is right here in the interview, David.

"Ranfurlie was our first 18-hole course and they are hard commissions to win in Australia where so few new courses get built. It’s a polarising course, one which some think of as just a paddock with 18 flags and a bunch of holes running up and down."

Thomas Dai

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2016, 05:14:41 AM »
Posts from MC are always interesting so thank you for this piece. I recall the old rendition of Healesville and would love to play the new version.
Atb

Jason Topp

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2016, 08:21:38 AM »
Thanks Mike and Ran.  Mike has always been a must-read commentator on the game and course design.

Peter Pallotta

Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2016, 10:45:40 PM »
I am not sure there has ever been a better before and after photo as the one from Royal Canberra accompanying the interview.

You took the words out of my mouth, David.
We've all seen a great many of these B&A photos in the last few years, and they all start looking vaguely the same -- as if all the work at every course is based on the same basic formula...which I suppose it is; but on that one at RC, there seems something special, some added oomph or variation to the formula that I can't put my finger on.
Anyway -- lovely work, Mike and team

Peter

Mike_Clayton

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2016, 03:08:29 AM »
Peter,


The funny thing about the 14th at Royal Canberra was it was one of the better holes on the course. It had a logical strategy - drive left by the bunkers to get a clearer line into a left to right green - but it made no use of the primary natural feature of the hole.

David_Tepper

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2016, 02:55:03 PM »
"Golf is more fun when you hit some greens in regulation."

Couldn't agree more!

Mark Pearce

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #8 on: September 20, 2016, 05:45:39 PM »
A fascinating interview and very timely as it has given me a host of names of courses I hadn't previously considered to think about for an upcoming trip Down Under.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of Mike's work.
In June I will be riding the first three stages of this year's Tour de France route for charity.  630km (394 miles) in three days, with 7800m (25,600 feet) of climbing for the William Wates Memorial Trust (https://rideleloop.org/the-charity/) which supports underprivileged young people.

John Mayhugh

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Re: Feature Interview No.2 with Mike Clayton is posted
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2016, 10:48:32 PM »
Healesville is definitely high on my list of places to see the next time I make it to Australia.  Shorter courses with interesting greens have a lot of appeal.  That's especially sensible for the type of club it is. 

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