Hole No. 17 credit: LC Lambrecht/Courtesy of Whispering Pines GC (or however Larry Lambrecht likes his credit to appear)

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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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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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.

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

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.

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