Feed The Ball

Peter Kessler — the Voice of Golf, historian and one of the most outspoken commentators in the game — returns to the podcast to talk to Derek about his recent social media dustups with Brandel Chamblee and the fans of No Laying Up, about being provocative on Twitter, the skills required to be great on camera, the consequences of the shift in the way consumers view golf content, elevating and creating a new standard in golf media, his upcoming re-emergence on the small screen, the importance of legislating the golf ball, USGA Open set-up malfeasance, what the new standard should be to get into the World Golf Hall of Fame, jamming with Dennis Wilson and frankly too many other tasty bits to cover here. Just listen.

Outro: “Roll Me Away,” Bob Seger

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Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 36: Peter Kessler 3 appeared first on Feed The Ball.

P.B. Dye began working on his father Pete Dye’s construction sites when he was a boy. Along with his brother, Perry, he’s had the closest and longest view of how Dye conceived of and built golf courses and was a primary assistant during several of his father’s touchstone courses, including Long Cove on Hilton Head Island and The Honors Course near Chattanooga. In the 1980’s, P.B. branched out on his own and has subsequently built courses all over the world, including Atlanta National, Golf de Barbareaux (France), Old Quarry (Curaçao), La Cana at Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and the P.B. Dye Golf Club in Maryland. No matter how far he’s traveled, however, he’s always remained close to his family and the Dye design philosophy.

P.B. talks to Derek about taking marching orders from his 94-year old grandmother, designing with passion vs. ego, developing courses in the field the Dye way, canoeing around the raw TPC Sawgrass site, the importance of horses to the development of early 20th century golf (not just in construction), Ron Whitten’s moving Golf Digest piece about his father, creating doubt and deception for elite players, being hired to build difficult golf courses, humorist Lewis Grizzard’s suggestion regarding P.B. and Atlanta National and the integrated beauty and relationships of the extended Dye family.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 35: P.B. Dye appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Thad Layton began working for Arnold Palmer Course Design in the late 1990’s and now, as Senior Architect and Vice President, leads the company along with fellow designer Brandon Johnson. Since 1972, the firm has been known for producing a massive number of courses worldwide, mostly associated with real estate. Over the last five years, however, Layton and Johnson have been recalibrating the business model, narrowing their output and moving toward a more artisan, hands on approach to design. Rather than using large contractors as was once de rigueur, Layton now handles much of his own shaping and also enlists some of the business’s best independent shapers on his projects.

Layton joins the podcast to talk about taking Palmer Design Company toward the design-build mold, creating small golf landscapes in public and community spaces, the positive impact of Top Golf, creating golf courses that simply are what they are, transitioning away from contractor-oriented construction, the heyday of Palmer Course Design and its corporate jets, the challenge of changing entrenched perceptions, the future of Bay Hill, how he can become a better architect in the eyes of Jason Day and the sincerity of the “brown is beautiful” movement.

Watch a gorgeous flyover of Naples Lakes Country Club here.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 34: Thad Layton appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Tom Mackenzie joined with Martin Ebert to form the golf architectural firm of Mackenzie & Ebert in 2005. They each began their careers designing golf courses for Donald Steel, and their business is very much a continuation of the elder architect’s practice. Like Steel, Mackenzie prefers to design naturally, altering landscapes as little as possible while identifying intrinsic queues in the ground. Mackenzie and Ebert have garnered wide acclaim for their original work, and they’ve also been lead consulting architects for seven of the 10 Open Championship rota courses. Their new and remodeled holes at Royal Portrush will be on display at the 2019 Open, and their magnificent revival of Old Tom Morris’s lost Askernish links on the islands of the Outer Hebrides has introduced fanatical golfers to the way the game was played over 100 years ago.

Tom joins Derek to talk about the Ryder Cup, Le Golf National as Sawgrass on steroids, whether it’s more difficult to transform a horrible site into a good golf course or to turn a great site into a greater golf course, his spiritual home of Dornoch, helping to crack Ebert into the profession, the bad economics of residential golf development, the joy of belonging to a club with institutionalized quick play, being part of the Tom Simpson lineage, whether pure restoration is always the right approach, golf as it once was (150 years ago) at Askernish and whether golf design has rid itself from harmful past practices.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

Outro credit: Gov’t Mule, “Helter Skelter”

The post Episode 33: Tom Mackenzie appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Richard Mandell’s golf design practice has taken off over the last 10 years. He entered the business in the early 1990’s and paid his dues for over a decade working singular jobs while learning how to build and renovate courses with a minimal amount of of unnecessary inputs or accessorization. As a result he gained a reputation as a conscientious, hands-on designer who works practically and economically. In addition to new course designs and comprehensive remodelings of other struggling venues, Mandell, who lives in Pinehurst, has delved deep into the writings and drawings of Donald Ross and is a specialist in restoring features of Ross and other Golden Age architects.

Mandell took time out to share his thoughts and opinions on a variety of topics including getting his heart broken by the Philadelphia Flyers, growing up playing golf in Westchester County, the art of removing trees, the potential and cost saving power of lawnmowers, the “trend” of fun and enjoyment in golf, his concept of tee shot distance equity, researching early Robert Trent Jones, breaking through at Raleigh Country Club, being passed over for work in his own backyard, the tasty vanilla of current high end architecture and when Pinehurst No. 2 became La Costa.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 32: Richard Mandell appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Ron Forse was an engineer who made a jump into golf course architecture in 1989, working on a project in West Virginia in conjunction with Dr. Michael Hurdzan. Though not necessarily his intent, he began taking jobs consulting with a number of historic club, guiding them through the process of renovating their old courses. Since that time he’s become one of the business’s most respected course historians and authoritative restoration specialists, working with clubs across the U.S. and Canada to revive and recapture the playability, features and architectural intent lost in the courses of Donald Ross, William Flynn, William Langford and many others.

Forse joins the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about the perils — and benefits — of life on the road in the early 1900’s, the insecurity of golf course architects, the influence of Jethro Tull, if the best contemporary architects are demonstrating a progression of their art, Willie Park Jr.’s greens, design that de-emphasizes putting, developing classical architectural themes on non-historic properties, the surprisingly varied topography of Florida, the true cost of remodeling public courses with great site potential and whether it’s time to begin restoring Robert Trent Jones courses.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 31: Ron Forse appeared first on Feed The Ball.

South Carolina native Beau Welling played college golf at Brown University and earned a landscape architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. After exploring career opportunities in several diverse fields, he committed to golf course architecture joining Tom Fazio’s staff in the late 1990’s. In 2007 he opened his own firm in Greenville, and became senior design consultant for Tiger Woods’ TGR Design. Having now built several courses both with Woods (including Bluejack National) and on his own at places like Quinto do Lago in Portugal and The 27 Club in China, Welling has developed one of the most eclectic and interesting resumes in golf.

Welling joined the Feed the Ball podcast while on a visit to California to discuss the paradox of Pebble Beach being one of the world’s greatest courses yet somehow falling short of its potential, the importance of designing human spaces for people to connect and gather, the holistic relationship between golf and development, New Urbanism applied to golf, whether or not Tom Fazio is misunderstood, the hope that the Jackson Park/Sourth Shore renovation project can revitalize the South Side of Chicago, Tiger Woods as golf course architect, the future of the player-architect and his favorite Irish dramatist.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 30: Beau Welling appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Tom Coyne’s fourth book is “A Course Called Scotland,” a funny and poignant tale of his journey playing over 100 links courses in Scotland, England and Wales in less than 60 days. His goal was twofold: to find out the meaning of golf, which must exist somewhere in those sacred links soils; and to hone his game enough to pass through a qualifier at the end of his trip and gain entry into the Open Championship. With this, his previous books and vast magazine filings, Coyne has become one of golf’s most entertaining and knowledgable man of letters, a go-to scribe for conveying the joy and adventure of traveling with sticks.

He joined Derek Duncan to talk about how media has changed since the release of his last book, being one of the few people in the world to play virtually every links course in the UK and Ireland, how to write distinctively about dozens of courses that are essentially very similar, how American golf enables technical golf swings while links golf demands creativity, the irony of Americans taking a British game and making it snobby, the importance of resurrecting caddie programs, links courses being critic-resistant, the tragedy of Trump International in Aberdeen and whether the Bandon Dunes courses are true links.

(photo: crudenbaygolfclub.co.uk)

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 29: Tom Coyne appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Oregon native Dan Hixson began his golf career as a tour pro and later became a club professional, but his real desire was to be a golf course architect. Despite no formal training, he slowly learned the profession and soon was hired to build Bandon Crossings, a public course just south of Bandon Dunes. That led to new commissions for the remarkable Wine Valley in southeast Washington and a near decade-long project at The Retreat & Links at Silvies Valley Ranch where he designed one of the world’s few fully reversible 18-hole courses on a vast, stunning high country property in eastern Oregon.

Dan joins the podcast to talk about his early exposure to Robert Trent Jones, cigars and wine, the conception and creation of the newest golf destination in the West, taking advantage of the movements of a vast and intricate property, his longtime fascination with reversible courses, being a self-taught architect, the unappealing nature of perfectly presented golf holes, goat caddies, vanity construction expenditures of the early 2000’s, Wine Valley vs. Gamble Sands, the recipe for a truly challenging 6,300-yard course and his dream collaboration.

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 28: Dan Hixson appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Ron Whitten has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in golf course architecture since the mid-1980’s when he became Golf Digest’s architecture editor. He created the current criteria for the magazine’s popular (or, depending, notorious) Top 100 U.S & World Courses lists, has written various books including the essential compendium, “The Architects of Golf,” and has co-designed golf courses, including Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open.

Ron visits with Derek Duncan to talk about the influence he’s had on our age of design, Charlie Rose, early prophesies shared between him and Bill Coore, the inherent drawbacks of the magazine rating system, left- vs. right-brained architects, searching for the next creative burst in design, convincing Dick Youngscap to build in the Sand Hills, the lost art of cross bunkers, the dire absence of workable entry-level courses, the possibility of another update to “The Architects of Golf” and on what course his ashes will be spread.

(photo: Erin Hills)

Twitter: @feedtheball

Instagram: @feedtheball

Feed the Ball on iTunes, Stitcher Radio and Google Play

Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

The post Episode 27: Ron Whitten appeared first on Feed The Ball.