An important preface from the author, aimed at all of those who will respond angrily because they didn’t bother to read this preface: Don’t get mad when reading this piece. Have fun and comment liberally with your own hole edits.
Another year and another opportunity for this middle-class pragmatist from Ohio to play a handful (or more) great golf courses. And, based on readership rates, another opportunity to take advantage of what is easily my most-read content of the year: the fourth-annual Design Swap exercise, where the world’s best architects take a stab at redesigning the worst holes on the best golf courses I’ve played during the past year.
Well…I redesign from the hypothetical mindset of said architects. After all, there’s too much bonhomie in the industry for, say, Tom Doak to make a hole redesign recommendation to David McLay-Kidd. And so, instead, I attempt to embody the architects in question while redesigning what I interpret to be the worst hole at the best courses that their “colleagues” designed. The requirements for inclusion are that I must have played this course for the first time this calendar year, and only one course inclusion per architect.
So, for example, we’ve seen Seth Raynor head out to the Sheep Ranch, Langford and Moreau make ballyhoo at Ballyneal, and similar perversions of conscience in years past.
If it sounds sacrilegious, get real: The courses included are great. They are not perfect. Ryan Book is not capable of making them perfect because he’s not a golf course architect. These guys have a better shot than I do…all I need to do is follow their lead.
Granted, more people are going to be pissed off about this post than usual, almost entirely because of the first hole that’s going under the knife. Let’s get to it: