Easily the most important development in golf course architecture since LINKS
began publishing 20 years ago has been the renaissance of minimalism. But
whereas minimalism in the past was dictated by the lack of machinery that
makes major movements of earth mere child’s play, its rebirth has emerged on the
grounds of aestheticism, allied to some much overdue belt tightening.On
arrival at Augusta National Golf Club for the first time in the mid ’60s, I
marveled at its pristine perfection, more easily achieved when money is no
object. But to a Britisher brought up largely on true links layouts, it also
somewhat smacked a trifle of artificiality. Augusta National was not the
only example. While I wondered at the design subtleties of horticulturalist and
rose grower George Thomas at both Bel-Air and Riviera, there was still a touch
of the ornamental garden in both these great Los Angeles layouts.
The current
movement largely began with Sand Hills in Nebraska, the minimalist
masterpiece of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw that opened in 1995. I have not
played it, but I have pored over scores of photos, which have been a source of
total wonderment to me. But that is hardly surprising, since Crenshaw respects
the history and traditions of the game like no one else I have ever met.
Minimalists tend to be like that.
But more so than Coore and Crenshaw, Tom
Doak, whose company is aptly named Renaissance Golf, is the hero of the new
minimalist movement. Long before Doak achieved his design breakthrough with
Pacific Dunes in Oregon, he turned the small, insular world of course
architecture on its ear by publishing the truly outspoken The Confidential Guide
to Golf Courses, now out of print and selling for $650.
The book made Doak a
host of enemies. In assessing some 800 courses on six continents, he frankly
damned many with what victims considered viciously unkind comments. Doak makes
it abundantly clear that he doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about what other
architects think or do. He is his own man with his own philosophy based on his
minute study of the great old British courses, along with an apprenticeship
under Pete Dye.
Doak, Crenshaw and several others are reversing the path of
many of today’s architects who have turned on its ear the notion of the great
designers of the Golden Age that golf is a ground game. In turning it into
an airborne game, they have largely made their expensive and beautiful courses
rather fussy and even stereotyped, and not much fun for the very ordinary
hackers who can afford to live on, and play them.
At my 1995 Cliffs Valley
design in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, I shaved the fairways down and left
open virtually every green to a pitch and run except three par 3s. But new
superintendents fond of excessive watering have combined to destroy the original
concept, and it’s a crying shame. Well, at least I contributed to the minimalist concept by moving the least possible dirt on what was a cattle farm.
