Designing Golf

American golfers who visit the UK often come back wondering the U.S. doesn’t have more private golf clubs that encourage outside play. There are a number of reasons for the differences between the UK and U.S. club “models”—some tax-related, others having to do with history and culture. Still, it is possible to create a golf club in the U.S. that combines a strong local membership with a welcoming posture toward the public. That’s exactly what a group of people in Michigan is trying to do by reinventing Dunham Hills Golf Club as Proving Ground Golf Club.

In today’s episode, Garrett sits down with the architect behind this project, Mike DeVries. Mike is a partner with the firm Clayton, DeVries & Pont and a decorated solo architect whose designs include Kingsley Club, Cape Wickham Golf Links, Greywalls at Marquette Golf Club, Diamond Springs Golf Course, The Mines Golf Golf Course, and Pilgrims Run Golf Club. Mike and Garrett discuss the story behind the Proving Ground project and the benefits of emulating the UK club model. In the back half of the episode, they dig into Mike’s approach to designing and building affordable, accessible golf courses.

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One of the most important discussions in golf architecture today relates to the “footprint” of a golf course—that is, how much space a course takes up, both physically and environmentally. As the USGA Green Section discovered in a recent study, golf course footprints have gotten substantially bigger over time. To explore this phenomenon, Garrett Morrison sits down with George Waters, the manager of USGA Green Section Education. Garrett and George discuss how golf courses have evolved over the past 100 years, why course footprints have grown while many course features (fairways, bunkers, greens) have shrunk, and what these developments mean for the future of golf architecture.

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Today we’re diving deep into this year’s Open Championship venue, the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland. Garrett Morrison is joined by Matt Rouches, production associate at Fried Egg Golf, to discuss the history and architecture of this Harry Colt masterpiece. They touch on the the course’s exceptional land, inventive routing, beautifully shaped greens, and more.

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The best way to plunge a golf club into chaos is to suggest chopping down trees. In today’s episode, golf architecture author and consultant Bradley Klein joins Garrett Morrison to discuss this controversial issue. They delve into the history of trees on golf courses, explain the origins of the recent trend of tree removal, and address various arguments made both for and against tree-management programs.

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Today we’re diving deep into this year’s U.S. Open venue, Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. First, Garrett Morrison speaks with David Moore, Curator of Collections at Oakmont, about the early history of the club. Then Garrett sits down with Fried Egg Golf staff writer Joseph LaMagna to dig into the details of Oakmont’s architecture. They talk about the course’s topography, routing, underlying design philosophy, greens, hazards, aesthetics, and more. They also touch on the club’s controversial tree-removal program, Gil Hanse’s recent renovation work, and the kind of test that the course will administer to the pros. Garrett and Joseph wrap up by discussing a few specific holes to watch at the U.S. Open.

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In this installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett introduces his Fried Egg Golf colleague PJ Clark to C.B. Macdonald's "ideal holes." They discuss how Macdonald came up with the notion of "templates" based on famous British golf holes, and they dig into the history and characteristics of the Redan, Alps, and Road designs. Garrett and PJ wrap up by talking about whether the ideal holes have outlived their usefulness.

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If you’ve listened to any amount of golf architecture discussion in the past two decades, you’ve probably heard the term “minimalism.” In a basic sense, minimalism means trying to create compelling golf while moving as little earth as possible. Recently, some architects have been looking for alternatives to this philosophy. Two such architects are Tim Jackson and David Kahn, the principals of the firm Jackson Kahn Design. In this episode, Garrett Morrison speaks with Tim and David about what they make of “minimalism” as a category, how they approach different types of land, whether they’re concerned with making artificial golf features appear natural, and which courses and designers have inspired them.

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It’s not easy to design a golf course that challenges elite players without making average golfers want to quit the game. That was the task OCM Golf faced in its 2023-24 redesign of Course 3 at Medinah Country Club. In this episode, OCM partner Mike Cocking sits down with Garrett Morrison to talk about how he helped reimagine Medinah No. 3 as a course simultaneously capable of hosting both the 2026 Presidents Cup and an ordinary Saturday four-ball.

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What was Alister MacKenzie up to in the 1930s? For one thing, he was building Augusta National. But more generally, MacKenzie was exploring new forms of golf architecture and producing some genuinely experimental, even radical, courses. In this episode, Garrett Morrison speaks with Josh Pettit, founder of the Alister MacKenzie Institute, about MacKenzie’s wild ’30s: what projects he completed, how this era of his career influenced the design of Augusta National, and how it might light the way forward for golf architecture in the 21st century.

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Beau Welling is the founder and CEO of Beau Welling Design, and in addition to collaborating with Tiger Woods and designing courses like Bluejack National and Fields Ranch West at PGA Frisco, he is an an experienced landscape designer and urban planner. In this episode, Garrett Morrison talks with Beau about how designing a golf course is like designing a city. As far as Beau is concerned, the goal is the same: to help people feel and be more human.

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