For a 20-year-old, Doug Wright has accomplished a lot in golf. Growing up in Brunswick, Maine, Doug was a very good junior golfer, winning 48 consecutive
matches in high school. But as much as he enjoyed playing, Doug was passionate
about courses and architects. While most junior golfers just blast away with
little regard for strategy or nuance, Doug studied architecture, further honing
his interest by working on the maintenance crew at Falmouth Country Club. Doug also learned plenty about the game from his father, Eric, who also
entered our contest. Eric, a lawyer and a former assistant attorney general for
the state, has taken Doug on golf trips to both Scotland and Ireland.
At
Lehigh, Doug is majoring in civil engineering, and even parlayed his passion
into a semester at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he hopes to
return to receive a master’s in landscape architecture on his way to becoming a
golf architect.
If his entry in the LINKS Magazine Design Contest is
any indication of his abilities, Doug will be a success. The architects of
Westhaven Golf Club in Franklin, Tennessee—Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and
Associates—and the editors of LINKS picked Doug’s design for Westhaven’s 13th
hole from the 1,159 entries we received from readers in 49 states (Hawaii was
the only state not represented), the District of Columbia, Canada and Scotland.
Doug’s wining design features a split fairway of sorts that challenges
players to place their tee shots on the narrower right side for a clear shot to
the angled green. As the winner, Doug will make several site visits as the hole
takes shape, working with renowned architect Arthur Hills and his
associates, Chris Wilczynski and Joel Hornickel.
“This contest has only
increased my interest in architecture,” Doug says. “It will be great to see how
things are done firsthand and to learn from someone like Mr. Hills.”
“We all
think Doug’s hole is great, a neat design with some out-of-the-box thinking,” says Hills. “The split-fairway concept is something we hadn’t used elsewhere at
Westhaven, so it brought diversity to the routing. He created a hole that relies
on the strategic use of angles. That is something we value.”
Doug studied
both Westhaven—the course and the community—as well as Hills’ design
philosophies and drew some preliminary drafts before deciding upon his final
design. His preparation was evident in his entry.
“We appreciated the detail
he provided in his plan,” says Wilczynski. “He showed grade changes, bunker
depths and undulations within the green surface. Doug very effectively
communicated his ideas to us.”
Doug’s interest in course architecture is indicative of the passion our readers bring to the subject, and we thank
every one who entered our contest and made it successful, especially Chris
Fremuth of Marriottsville, Maryland. Chris drove eight hours through the night
to deliver his entry to Hills’ offices in Toledo, Ohio, so it would arrive
by the deadline. We think everyone hooked on the game would understand.
The Winning Design
The Runner-Up Design Contest Entries
Other Top Design Contest Entries
Creative Design Contest Entries
