



PGA Tour and current PGA Champions tour player Tom Lehman, winner of the 1996 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s, has seamlessly managed to maintain an elite game while developing a golf course design outlook that almost entirely eschews consideration of elite players. Lehman stops by the Salon to speak with Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina about:


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–The importance of hitting your line when playing links golf;



–how golf is too consumed with “championship golf;”



–the overuse of multiple tees;



–the similarities of old-school U.S. Open setups and links golf;



–the curse of construction technology;



–anchoring a routing on several special natural features;



–and how some players just “get it” and “see it” when it comes to architecture (and others don’t).



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Photos: The Prairie Club, courtesy lehmandesigngroup.com




The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 16, ft. Tom Lehman appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 16, ft. Tom Lehman

In the Feed the Ball podcast, Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan discusses golf course design, architecture, aesthetics and other topics with golf course architects and other luminaries of the game.

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History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Arts

Literature

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Design

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Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Sports

Golf





Lee Schmidt’s lengthy golf architecture career began in the early 1970s working for Pete Dye and took many different detours through the decades. He worked closely with Landmark Land Company on numerous Dye projects in the 70s and 80s before taking a job with Jack Nicklaus’ design firm. In the late 1990s he created his own firm with Brian Curley, and the two built courses across the U.S. and also made deep inroads into the Asian market, becoming the most influential American architects in the region–they designed and built over a dozen courses at China’s Mission Hills development alone. Today Schmidt is semi-retired, though as is always true in golf architecture, there’s always work that keeps pulling him back.



Schmidt joins Golf Digest’s Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina to share stories about Pete and P.B. Dye, learning about golf design from Bill Diddel, the different construction approaches of Dye and Nicklaus, building the Alcatraz Bunker at PGA West’s 16th hole, Dye’s love of building courses that were challenging to professionals, the decision to leave Nicklaus, how he formed his partnership with Curley and opened over 60 courses in China and rooming with Bill Coore in the early 70s.



Photos: Cover page, The Wilderness Club (wildernessclubmontana.com); Above, the Alcatraz Bunker at PGA West.



Watch Golf Digest’s drone video of Pinehurst No. 2 here.



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The post Feed the Ball Salon 28, ft. Lee Schmidt appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Feed the Ball Salon 28, ft. Lee Schmidt





If might seem like golf course architect Scott Hoffman came out of nowhere with his design at Lost Rail, opened in 2022 outside of Omaha. However, he’d previously worked for over a decade with Tom Fazio, designing courses in the western U.S. He then worked with Tim Jackson and David Kahn for a number of years. Hoffman wasn’t pursuing new work when he was approached about looking at land for a club near Omaha, where he’s from, and those interests turned into Lost Rail, Golf Digest’s runner up for Best New Private Course for 2023. He’s now busy constructing Mapleton, another new stand-alone club near Sioux Falls, Idaho.



Hoffman joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss finding the land for Lost Rail, his instinct for routing golf courses, the insomnia-inducing puzzle of routing Lost Rail, the freedom of working for Fazio versus being his own business, how to water a 20,000 square-foot green, whether classical architecture influences his designs, the futility of properly evaluating a course after just one round and how he compares and contrasts Shinnecock Hills with National Golf Links of America.



Photos: Cover page, Lost Rail (Lost Rail Golf Club); Above, the par-3 11th at Scottsdale National. 



Watch and listen to Bill Coore narrate the latest Golf Digest Every Hole at Cabot Saint Lucia (script by Derek Duncan).



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The post Episode 87: Scott Hoffman appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Episode 87: Scott Hoffman





Two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw joins golf course builder Jim Urbina and Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss his long time partnership with architect Bill Coore and the beliefs and impulses that define the many courses they’ve built, from Sand Hills to Friar’s Head to Bandon Trails, all the way through to their newest courses including Point Hardy at Cabot Saint Lucia.



Crenshaw talks about meeting Urbina for the first time, Coore grooming green contours down to the quarter inch, how his roots playing dry and windy courses influenced his preference for designing toward the ground game, the importance of matching turf conditions to the architecture, the influence of Perry Maxwell in his green building and the intuitive and enduring chemistry between he and Coore. Powered by Highest quality CBD oil



Watch and listen to Bill Coore narrate the latest Golf Digest Every Hole at Cabot Saint Lucia (script by Derek Duncan).



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Twitter: @feedtheball



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Photos: Opening page, Sand Hills #4; Above, Sand Hills #2 
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 27, ft. Ben Crenshaw appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 27, ft. Ben Crenshaw





Golf course architect Greg Letsche, lead designer for Ernie Els Design, joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina to discuss his early years working for Pete Dye, how running projects for Jack Nicklaus differed from his experience with Dye, the design similarities between Dye and Nicklaus, the sometimes absurd challenges and hiccups working internationally in different cultures, how Els’ sympathy for poor golfers manifests in his designs, reuniting with Nicklaus at The Bear’s Club and transitioning into renovating older courses like the Scarlet Course at Ohio State (MacKenzie) and Wentworth (Colt) near London.



PHOTOS: Cover image: Albany, Bahamas (albanybahamas.com); Above: Anahita Mauritius (ernieels.com)



Watch Derek Duncan discuss Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, host of the 2023 U.S. Open.



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Twitter: @feedtheball



Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 26, ft. Greg Letsche appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 26, ft. Greg Letsche





In less than 10 years in the profession, Blake Conant has risen from crew member to shaper to the co-designer of Old Barnwell, a stunning new course near Aiken, S.C. Conant has primarily shaped greens and bunkers for Tom Doak at projects like Houston’s Memorial Park, Bel Air, The National’s Gunnamatta Course in Australia and St. Patrick’s in Ireland while working closely with Doak’s associates Eric Iverson, Don Placek, Brian Slawnik and Brian Schneider, who is his co-designer at Old Barnwell.



Conant joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the difference between being a shaper for someone else and having final edit responsibility at Old Barnwell, how the search for creative opportunities stokes his passion for golf design, whether he and Schneider began with an initial vision for Old Barnwell, originality vs. derivation, drawing inspiration from other forms of art and nature and if designers of his generation need to be more ethically aware of golf development’s impacts on sustainability, social connections and the economy.



PHOTOS: Cover image: Old Barnwell, 13th hole; Above: Old Barnwell’s 6th and 7th holes.



Watch Derek Duncan discuss Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, host of the 2023 U.S. Open.



Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play



Twitter: @feedtheball



Instagram: @feedtheball
The post Episode 86: Blake Conant appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 16, ft. Tom Lehman

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