My Info
My name is Robert Giuffra III. I live in New York City and Southampton. I’m in seventh grade. I love golf course architecture.
Golf is first and foremost a game of strategy. Old Tom Morris, the first great architect, did not manufacture strategic elements in his courses. He found his courses in the lay of the land. He created bunkers out of animal burrows and greens out of slopes in the terrain. As the game evolved, architects like Charles Blair Macdonald and Alistar MacKenzie, began to incorporate deliberate strategic elements in their designs. Macdonald drew his inspiration from the Old Course, North Berwick and other early courses and popularized templates such as the Redan hole and my favorite, Punchbowl. Drawing on his experience designing trenches for the military during the Boer War, MacKenzie designed some of the most strategic courses ever built, from Augusta to Cypress.
Golf is humbling. I have been fortunate to have played some great golf courses. The design on these courses is truly magnificent. My favorites are Shinnecock and National, courses that border each other, but could not be more different in their style of play. Shinnecock is a championship golf course, where good shots are rewarded and errant shots are penalized -- sometimes severely. It plays far harder than its neighbor. National includes more blind shots, more opportunities to play running shots, and the rough off the fairways is not as heavy. Almost every hole at National offers the golfer different routes to the hole, with different risks and rewards. The greens at Shinnecock have more subtle contours than those at National. Both courses are of the finest quality, and I have no conclusive opinion on which course is better. I look forward to discussing architecture and getting to know everyone.
Best,
Robert Giuffra III