[Ally Mcintosh]

It seems that with so many really, really good new courses, and so many really good restorations, the Top 100 list is getting too small in size to comfortably fit all the courses that have a claim to being truly great (and all the money and ego backing these courses).


It seems to me that a Top 200 list starts being more and more relevant, and probably within this list, there should be a ton of courses tied at T-101.

I’ve felt for sometime that you should divide the chronology of golf into 3 eras. I realize magazines dont all rate by chronological eras, but consider separate lists for:


1888-1960
1961-1994
1995 -present

The period 1995 - 2023 has produced a minuscule number of golf courses, probably only 150 to 200 from what this website would call the “2nd Golden Age”. The rest of the courses built in that timeframe (primarily before the 2008 crash) are more befitting the “type” of course for which the period 1961-1994 has been defined.


The period before 1960 probably produced over 20,000 courses, a vast number more worthy of consideration but virtually ruled out by sheer number.


So either the current period is producing far better courses than the first period. Or some of the courses are comparatively over-rated. I could make an argument for either the former or the latter. But what I’d really not like to see is a Top-100 from such a limited breadth of overall development represented by this recent period. All you are asking for is a Top-100 that includes 25 of Tom’s 45 courses and approaching a similar number for Coore.

[MClutterbuck]

An argument can be made that cheap travel, photography, the Internet, smart phones, drones, modern construction and maintenance machinery and techniques, technology in general, has made new golf courses better, pari-passu.


When I think of how we built the front 9 a few years back, versus how we are building the back 9 at El Desafio now, we are able to get images, movies, drone shots back to the designer real-time, there is a huge change.


Even a firm that has a senior associate on the ground day to day, can consult with his principle and the developer real time, provide all sorts of visuals and make quick adjustments, even risk playing around with a concept that came up during construction and have it checked out real time, approve it or revert to planned concept. Before there is no way that could happen, there was a visit scheduled by when everything had to be finalized. In that sense there is also more room for creativity.


We should not be surprised that, if good general ideas about what a golf course should be prevail, more and more good courses are built proportionally. 

[Kevin Pallier]

A recent view from the original investor


https://www.australiangolfdigest.com.au/who-really-designed-cape-wickham-links/

[Jeff Schley]

Kevin seems pretty clear the developer feels Darius should have been given co design credit.  Wonder if that was in writing or just verbal agreement, my guess is that it isn't contractual.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I am naive sometimes, but I just don't understand taking full credit when you have a partner. He would be someone to share the joy with.

[Thomas Dai]

No comment on the background to the course or who designed, built it etc, just that it’s a bloody brilliant course to play and a great place and island to visit.
Absolutely fantastic.
If you get the chance or can create the opportunity, go!

Atb

A couple of worthy course videos -


Scott Campbell - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt64uYhAoFc&pp=ygURY2FwZSB3aWNraGFtIGdvbGY%3D
and
Under the Card - [size=78%]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5JlTRzGjs[/size]

[Buck Wolter]

The No Laying Up guys went fairly recently. The # of snakes was a little off-putting!

https://nolayingup.com/videos/tourist-sauce/tourist-sauce-australia-season-9/tourist-sauce-return-to-australia-episode-5-king-island

[Cort Sylvester]

The No Laying Up guys went fairly recently. The # of snakes was a little off-putting!

https://nolayingup.com/videos/tourist-sauce/tourist-sauce-australia-season-9/tourist-sauce-return-to-australia-episode-5-king-island

After watching that episode, I was retroactively terrified of my round at Cape Wickham. It was a brutally windy and intermittently rainy day and I was the only person on the course.  Thankfully I didn’t see a single snake. Not sure I would have finished the round if I had, and not sure I’d go back after seeing NLU there, despite the high quality of the course. 

[Brian Finn]

A recent view from the original investor
https://www.australiangolfdigest.com.au/who-really-designed-cape-wickham-links/

Interesting article.  I was surprised by some of Duncan Andrews' comments regarding routing.
 
Who was responsible for the routing of Cape Wickham?
 
So we ended up with Mike DeVries. Mike came out to Australia from Michigan. He spent a month there on King Island looking at potential layouts. The problem with laying out an 18-hole course at Wickham was that there were at least 100 terrific golf holes. And probably 10 different routings for the golf course you could have. At least 10, maybe more.
 
This is the delicious thing about a course like this: there’s no right answer. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. If you put in that hole because it’s gorgeous, you can’t fit in the other equally gorgeous hole. We wanted to make a course that was walkable and one hole that fed into another. We weren’t going to have 500-metre walks between tees and greens.
 
Anyway, Mike put together a routing that was good, but it changed considerably in the end with input from Darius and me… There’s always in these things, an element of disagreement. Routing a course, architects would say it’s their skill, but I don’t entirely agree with that. Darius and I are as competent for routing a golf course as somebody else. Once you’ve set your rules – let’s say, for example, where is the first hole going to be or will there be returning nines – it becomes easier. Cape Wickham was hard because there were so many choices and that meant compromises all the way along.

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