Local golfer aces prestigious Dreer Award
STEVE WARTO, a former Aragon High golf star, has designs on becoming a course architect. A few years ago a shy kid came wandering up on the range and asked some advice about a career in golf course design. I gave the boy a list of books on architectural history to read. People won't generally bother to pour through tomes written in the 1920s and'30s unless they are hooked. Most kids go through continual phases trying to decide what they want to do with the rest of their life, but there was something about Warto that told me his decision on a career path was final and non-negotiable. A couple months later we had a conversation on some classic architectural schematics, and this teenager began to seamlessly quote from Mackenzie, C.B. Macdonald and George Thomas. He hadn't glanced through the books; he'd memorized them. Warto spent most of his time playing the local tracks until he was accepted for a junior membership at Green Hills. So it is no surprise that Alister Mackenzie remains his favorite designer. Many of us golfers who took up the game early in life spent hours ignoring the teacher in algebra class while drawing up golf holes. Warto was one of those kids who instinctively knew that he must understand the past before being part of the future. Next, I lent him "The Anatomy of a Golf Course," a book written by Tom
Doak. Doak is the iconoclastic founder of Renaissance Golf Design, a maverick firm that brought us courses like the already world-famous Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Ore. In it, Doak recounts his journey from high school to Cornell University -- where he won a grant to follow in the footsteps of Robert Trent Jones Sr. -- and study abroad in search of the architectural roots of our game. This Cornell educational grant is known as the William Fredrick Dreer Award, given to one student every year. It is the most sought-after and prestigious education award for golf designers and agronomists in the world. Studying hundreds of courses all over the United Kingdom and returning with a wealth of knowledge, Doak landed a job with Pete Dye before eventually founding his own firm. For those who keep track, his frequent roommate at Dye's firm was John Harbottle III, who has brought us Stevinson Ranch, Monarch Bay and remodels of Stanford GC and Los Angeles CC, among others. Warto decided that Doak's trail was the surest path between here and there, opting to attend Santa Barbara City College to improve his grades while working at a local landscape architecture firm. He also spent time teaching an autistic boy named Jared. Perspective comes in all places if you pay attention. Gaining admission to Cornell after two years, Warto called and said he was going to enter the landscape architecture program and try to win the Dreer Award. The application is arduous and requires the planning of a full year of continuous study and travel as well as practical experience. The award does not necessarily go to budding golf designers as it encompasses the entire discipline of architecture, agronomy, horticulture and botanical research. Despite the fierce competition, I was not surprised when he wrote to say he had won. Warto's itinerary beginning June is dizzying. The list of courses he is committed to visit and study is voluminous. I quit counting at 125, and this before he begins an internship next year somewhere around the world with former Dreer winner Tom Doak or Brian Costello and Mark Hollinger at JMP Golf Design in Northern California. Warto and I talked before he applied for the award about keeping a diary of his travels overseas. I told him if he won, we would check in with him occasionally for a look at courses around the world through the eyes of a talented architect in the making. A longshot, but sometimes longshots pay off. At the conclusion of his journey, Warto will present his findings to the faculty at Cornell. By then, I am sure he will be well along the path to designing a golf course of his own. The life of a golf architect is full of travel and long hours, much of the time in lonely hotel rooms far from home and family. But it is also the fondest childhood dream of this San Mateo native. With any luck, one day he will return and build one for us golfers he left behind.