http://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/feature-interview-with-tyler-rae/Tyler Rae came into golf architecture at the worst possible time (2006) yet has overcome the downturn and challenges to carve out a nice niche for himself. The 33 year old has touched scores of projects to date and it takes smarts, desire, innovation and passion to prosper through such a bleak period of new course construction.
He started in golf in 1998, doing anything he could including the bag room, caddie shack and pro shop - you name it. In 2006 he met Keith Foster at Wilmington CC and that became his seminal moment for architecture. A stint with Coore & Crenshaw followed and I first met Tyler at the Dormie Club in 2010. Ultimately, he landed with Ron Prichard and as Ron winds down, Tyler is tending to their book of business.
Last year he very kindly joined us at Northlands CC, where they are making slow but steady progress in restoring Ross features to one of the game's most diverse, rugged sites. Northland's greens are so unique and devilish that wily veterans were missing the line on putts by 10, 15 feet because they couldn’t appreciate the pull toward Lake Superior. If the club executes his plan, the course will join my 147 list. Already on that list is Cedar Rapids CC, one of my favorite restoration stories, where a moribund, featureless course ended up with Ross features that are as equally attractive as its river valley setting. The project was done at the bargain price of ~$700,000 (please refer to Vaughn Halyard's outstanding October 2016 Feature Interview for a detailed account).
When a project’s cost sounds reasonable, it is almost surely design-build. You hire the guy who is going to do the work and you cut out the fluff. Cedar Rapids transformation was helped by their superb, hands-on Green Keeper but that design-build model is the value proposition that Tyler brings to each project. Who can argue it’s not the best, most economical way forward? Tyler’s accomplishments bode well for the bevy of shapers and builders who will become the custodians of golf architecture in the coming decades and GolfClubAtlas will continue to do Feature Interviews with architects that embrace the design-build methodology in an effort to accelerate its acceptance.
In his "down time," what does Tyler do? He travels to see courses. Some of this month's Feature Interview was written in the Netherlands, part in Germany, and in a first … some was written in the Channel Islands! Details of that trip and his gleanings are included in this month's Feature Interview. Tyler has a voracious appetite for different places and their golf as borne out by the fact that he has seen over 2000 courses. We asked him for some travel advice, and if the Next Fifty still existed, Evanston CC in Illinois and Teugega GC in New York would be promptly listed.
Congratulations to Tyler for his success in a tough environment over the last 13 years - I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes in the next 13 years, fully expecting that his clients will get more than they bargained for.
Best,