You may have read or heard someone talk about good or bad “tie-ins” on a golf course. It loosely has to do with how the architecture is connected to the land during construction, but the topic is much larger and more nuanced than that. Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina define and discuss tie-ins, what they are, and why doing them correctly is important to the functionality and enjoyment of a golf course.

Cover photo: The 4th at Pacific Dunes, built by Jim Urbina.

Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

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Looking ahead to The Players Championship, former PGA Tour player Richard Zokol and designer Jeff Mingay drop in from Canada to break down everything there is to know about The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass (Zokol actually competed on Sawgrass in the 1980s). We get into the history and creation of the course, how it exemplifies Pete Dye’s architectural genius, its influence on golf design, playing the course with 1980s equipment, how the professionals have adapted to it and commentary on its best, worst and most overrated holes.

Outro song: “Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd.

Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

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Writer Michael Croley, author of the book Any Other Place: Stories, veered into the world of golf with a revelatory profile on Tom Doak in 2017 in the Virginia Quarterly Review, hardly the place you’d expect to find an expose on a golf course architect. Now fully entrenched in the golf writing world while teaching creative writing at Denison University, Croley joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how he was able to get under the surface of Doak’s public persona, the usefulness of being new to a subject, if the concept of “genius” applies to golf course architects, the usefulness of criticism in golf writing and if contemporary architecture is “sanded out.”

Photos: Above, Kinsale; Main page, St. Patrick Links (Clyde Johnson).

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.

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Former Australian, European and PGA Tour player and current CBS Sports golf broadcaster Ian Baker-Finch joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina on the Feed the Ball podcast. They discuss the lack of architecture discussion during tournament television broadcasts, the dangers of the distance professional players are driving the ball, the importance of seeing as many different courses as possible, the different genius of Bill Coore and Tom Fazio, why PGA Tour rounds take so long, what makes Australian Sand Belt courses so distinct and what Baker-Finch’s ideal course design would look like.

Photos: Above, Pebble Beach (Stephen Szurlej); Main page, Kingston Heath (David Cannon).

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.

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The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 30, ft. Ian Baker-Finch appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Texas-based architect Chet Williams joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss designing the 2024 Golf Digest Best New Private Course, The Covey at Big Easy Ranch near Houston. He talks about what made the land special, the ideal of creating as much hole-to-hole variety as possible, working with owner Billy Brown and how 25 years working for Jack Nicklaus has influenced his design sensibilities.

Photos: Above, Whispering Pines 17th hole (Larry Lambrecht); Main page, The Covey at Big Easy Ranch, 8th hole (Brian Oar).

Outro song: “Anything Can Happen,” The Clean.

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 17th hole at Whistling Straits.

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The post Episode 92: Chet Williams appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Keith Cutten comes back on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the new Shorty’s course at Bandon Dunes that opened last year, Brantford Golf & Country Club in Ontario and building Ken Baskt’s The Ranch near Hobe Sound, Florida. He also explains the working dynamics of his firm Whitman, Axland, Cutten (WAC), how Dave Axland and Rod Whitman work, the importance of small contours and what an updated chapter of his book The Evolution of Golf Course Design might look like.

Photos: Above, Brantford Golf & Country Club (Brantford G&CC); Main page, Shorty’s at Bandon Dunes (Bandon Dunes).

Outro song: “Time Stands Still,” Rush.

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.

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The post Episode 91: Keith Cutten 3 appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Mike Davis was the CEO and executive director for the USGA for over 30 years and was responsible for awarding U.S. Opens and Amateurs to host courses and helping to set them up for those tournaments. Over the course of his career he got to know intricately virtually every great golf course in the U.S. He now takes that knowledge into a new chapter of his life as a golf course designer, working with partner Tom Fazio II at Apogee Club in Florida designing the South Course, just completed.

Davis talks to Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan and golf course builder Jim Urbina about his first foray into design being such a large engineering project, fitting ideas of holes he experienced while setting up Opens into a blank-slate site and the challenges of balancing the demands of agronomy, professional skill levels, average member play and tournament play in modern design.

Photos: Above, Merion’s 5th hole (Derek Duncan); Main page, Apogee South (Jim Urbina).

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.

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The post Feed the Ball Salon Vol. 29, ft. Mike Davis appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Scottish golf course architect Benjamin Warren joins the Feed the Ball podcast with Derek Duncan to discuss building The Loop at Chaska in Minnesota, a course designed for adaptive golfers, working extensively in Japan, why recent architecture outshines that of the 80s and 90s, the challenge of building true links in the U.S. and shaping courses for architects like Bill Coore, James Duncan, Kye Goalby and Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead.

Photos: Above, The Loop at Chaska (chaskaloop.com); Main page, The Tree Farm, hole 13 (Jeff Marsh).

Outro song: “Better Trends,” Japanese Motors.

Watch Derek Duncan break down The 13th hole at Pacific Dunes.

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The post Episode 90: Benjamin Warren appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Nick Schaan works side by side with architect David McLay Kidd out of their offices in Bend, Ore. Kidd is one of the most esteemed and decorated designers in the business over the last 25 years, and since 2006 Schaan has been instrumental in bringing to life acclaimed courses like Tributary, Mammoth Dunes and the new GrayBull course in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.

Schaan joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan to discuss GrayBull, making the new course at Gamble Sands different than the first, flying with Kidd as he pilots his private plane, the mastery of Pete Dye, the challenge of building Huntsman Springs (now Tributary), advancing their concept of “playability,” how they routed GrayBull and his thoughts on what the next generation of architects need to do to inherit the torch from Kidd and his peers.

Photos: Above, Gamble Sands’ 17th (Brian Oar); Main page, GrayBull’s 11th.

Outro song: “Wishlist,” Pearl Jam.

Watch Derek Duncan break down The Postage Stamp at Royal Troon.

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Mike Cocking is the “C” in the Australian golf design firm OCM. His partners are former tour player and 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and Ashley Mead. The trio have built courses in Australia and Asia and consult with some of the top historic clubs Down Under including Victoria and Kingston Heath. Over the last five years they’ve gained a foothold in the U.S. as well, beginning with the renovation of Shady Oaks in Fort Worth and more recently executed the radical reconception of the famous #3 course at Medinah outside Chicago. They have new projects, too, including the Fall Line in central Georgia, Tepetonka in Minnesota and a course near Austin.

Cocking joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how OCM broke ground in the states, the influence of Alister MacKenzie in Sand Belt golf, caddie culture, the insurmountable cost of building affordable public golf, the DNA of Sand Belt golf, the rare privilege of routing courses, the role of aesthetics in perceptions of greatness and the concept behind the revamping of Medinah.

Photos: Main Page, Victoria Golf Club (Gary Lisbon); Above, Medinah #3 (Medinah C.C.)

Outro song: Modest Mouse, Sunspots in the House of the Late Scapegoat

Watch Derek Duncan break down The Postage Stamp at Royal Troon.

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The post Episode 88: Mike Cocking appeared first on Feed The Ball.