A One-Question Survey on How We Got Interested in Golf Architecture

[Brian Hilko]

I took up the game at 8. At age 10 I was given World Atlas of Golf. I spent hours studying the routing maps in the book. At age 13 I played the Ocean Course at Kiawah for the first time. I was hooked early on.

[Tom_Doak]

I took up the game at 8. At age 10 I was given World Atlas of Golf. I spent hours studying the routing maps in the book.

I am a couple of years older, I guess (I'm 57), but that book had a huge influence on me, and I know it did on Ran as well.  I'm tempted to say it was a milestone for those of a certain age who would later become influential, but in truth the other influential architects I know are either a few years older, or younger.

[Kyle Harris]

I took up the game at 8. At age 10 I was given World Atlas of Golf. I spent hours studying the routing maps in the book.

I am a couple of years older, I guess (I'm 57), but that book had a huge influence on me, and I know it did on Ran as well.  I'm tempted to say it was a milestone for those of a certain age who would later become influential, but in truth the other influential architects I know are either a few years older, or younger.

I am curious to know how many of "my generation" were influenced by Brad Klein's "Rough Meditations" as I am.

Hope we die before we get old.

[Tom_Doak]

I am curious to know how many of "my generation" were influenced by Brad Klein's "Rough Meditations" as I am.

Wow, you are the second person to mention that book in the last four days.  (The other was in the U.K.). I had no idea it was that influential.

[Cal Seifert]

Driving down Tuckahoe road at a young age and seeing SHGC and knowing about the US Open fame brought me interest in golf course architecture.


Playing NGLA and Yale got me addicted a few summers ago.

[Shelly Jones]

An interesting question...


My cousin and I snuck on Cherry Creek in Denver when I was about 10.


Did not start playing top 100 courses on a regular basis until after 50, however....

[Kyle Harris]

I am curious to know how many of "my generation" were influenced by Brad Klein's "Rough Meditations" as I am.

Wow, you are the second person to mention that book in the last four days.  (The other was in the U.K.). I had no idea it was that influential.

It was printed around the time Tiger came into a prime and stood out among the rather dry or poorly written golf instruction books at the time.

For me, it was the only book of it's type available for loan at the local library. Coincidentally, I first borrowed it with a copy of Cornish & Whitten. C&W was too big to fit into my kit for a camping week I was going on so "Rough Meditations" made the trip.

[Tom_Doak]

The only book on golf courses my local library had when I was 10-12 was a funny little book with some great drawings of what looked like cool golf holes.  But after I'd read it once I never saw it again, and for a long time I couldn't remember the name of it or figure out what it was.


Many years later I again stumbled upon Patric Dickinson's A Round of Golf Courses.

[John Connolly]

At 34 I played Minikada in Minneapolis. After a lifetime of muni courses, I thought, "what the hell is this all about?"

[Robin_Hiseman]

Burnham & Berrow, when I was 10 years old. Both my Grans lived in Somerset and we would visit every year. My Mum would drop me and my brother off at Burnham in the morning and pick us up at tea time. Sometimes I was dropped off by myself and either played with a member or alone. It was too big and difficult for me, but it made me love links golf.


By that time I was already poring over the World Atlas of Golf. It's easy to forget now that we have such easy exposure to all the world's great courses at the click of a button, but that book revealed a world beyond my tiny little enclave in West Yorkshire that I knew nothing of. I remember being very taken with Teeth of the Dog (or Cajuiles as it was credited) and Falsterbo, but the most memorable section for me was the string of three photographs showing the stages of a golf hole in construction. I saw those and was immediately hooked. "That is what I want to do when I grow up." That book has had a profound effect on so many of us in the trade.