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:

My agent strongly advised me against criticizing this hole. (Photo Cred: BPBM)

What would happen if MIKE STRANTZ redesigned NO. 6 at THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GOLF COURSE?

The look on your face right now! Wolverines love the boomerang. MacKenzie devotees love the Michigan boomerang. Hopefully, someday, I’ll have the opportunity to visit Crystal Downs (although odds have decreased across this paragraph) and I’ll enjoy that club’s boomerang a bit more. Because this? This is a sweatsock, draped over the hillside to dry (maybe that’s why it seems the top-tier is permanently closed to pins).

I’ll get to the redeeming qualities in a minute so bear with me if you haven’t left already. MacKenzie surely never meant for his boomerang greens to fit perfectly to the identity of a course, any less than he expected the rest of the putting surfaces at Sitwell to match that club’s title green. Its distinctive shape alone didn’t alienate me so much as the path getting there, however. It’s a meaningless tee shot; a downhill shot to the distance that gives you a wedge into the tight target, with no proper hazards, aside from anxiety for the second shot, to make you nervous. In fact, I rather enjoyed the par three boomerang at No. 14, perhaps because it doesn’t waste time with the gimme tee shot…just you and pin position.

But yeah…No. 6 does stand out at Michigan, whether that’s for better or for worse. I played one course this year, however, where it would fit right in.

Mike Strantz’s Tobacco Road is a freak show and advertises accordingly. You don’t go there for a socio-normative round of golf. There’s one real consistency throughout that sandhills romp (outside of the commitment to eccentricity), and that’s Strantz’s long, thin greens. At least four instances take a figure-eight shape, which I’m willing to attribute directly to MacKenzie. One item that Tobacco doesn’t have? A proper drivable par four (I don’t buy the argument for No. 5). Strantz might be able to make something wonky and wonderful in Ann Arbor, however.

The hole is already short; just 310 yards from the back tees but the dramatic elevation from the bottom tier of the green to the top, along with a total lack of run-up options, don’t make this a realistic par 3.5 for most. Therefore Strantz is moving the back tee up the current white tee, which knocks about 35 yards off. Additionally, he’s rerouting the cart path to slide the tee box a bit left…which will make the top tier a tad more tempting for a moonshot driver (and justify some tree removal in the process).

I’ll grant you this: 255 yards from the back tees to the front, lower tier is not enough for a big hitter. Strantz can adjust for that by inverting MacKenzie’s ratio; the lower tier becomes the smaller target, remaining pinched by a big front bunker. Meanwhile, the upper tier grows, perhaps by trimming the north side of the largest bunker and even wrapping a bit, for a superintendent’s revenge-style pin location.

But yes gentle reader, you’re correct: I spent a lot of time complaining about the tee shot and I haven’t done anything about it yet. Strantz has me covered: At about 90 yards from the green, he’ll build up a hummock, with two bunkers built into its front face. From the tee, getting past the new hill is no real challenge…but the mental hurdle of hitting your shot over a hazard to a blind landing area can change the formula real quick. Those who lay up short still have a full-swing wedge into the green…but the presence of the hill ahead of them muddles the distance and creates similar fears.

If you’ve made it this far into the feature, I appreciate your willingness to consider. I don’t know that any other entry will be as controversial as this but we’ve certainly got a more challenging/exciting one coming up next…

Semi-functional yet still weird enough for all you Iggy Pop-type freaks in Ann Arbor. (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)

What would happen if ALISTER MACKENZIE redesigned NO. 6 at THE LOOP (BLACK)?

My biggest bugaboo regarding The Loop at Forest Dunes is not so much anything that Tom Doak did wrong, so much as the cowardice expressed by outsiders when analyzing it. The most flagrant example is publications considering it as a single course, rather than two, which in my opinion is intellectual laziness. It does require one to wonder, however, why people think like this. The primary reason is that the need for two courses required Doak to avoid maximizing any given natural feature in a way that would, on one hand, make singular holes singular standouts, but at the same time would threaten the viability of a hole heading in the opposite direction. The result of this technique, and simply of playing two rounds on the same plot of land, is that it’s tougher to mentally recall the courses on a hole-by-hole basis than it would be at neighboring Forest Dunes, for example.

That said, I have no problem in identifying the Black version of The Loop as my preferred rendition. A greater struggle was finding a weakest hole, a credit to Doak’s execution of the concept. Ultimately, however, I decided on the par five at No. 6.

Playing in the opposite direction (No. 13 on Red), much of the strategic intrigue appears during the approach, where players will want to shy away from the valley to the immediate right of the green, and those who shied right during the tee shot may find themselves boxed in by a tree that sits inside the right edge. Neither the valley nor the tree presents any real issue for players coming off the tee on Black No. 6. The green sits on a short knoll, which offers good enough defense during this short par five, but it doesn’t necessarily have the same sex appeal as seen elsewhere around the course.

Alister MacKenzie, having seen his boomerang green bastardized above, is the obvious candidate to lead a rethink here, for one reason: Tom Doak perhaps admires MacKenzie more than any other, and perhaps letting his idol mess with his greens will ultimately make him less irritated by the concept of my feature. It’s worth a shot!

MacKenzie himself was an avid admirer of the Old Course so he might be more sympathetic to Doak’s reversible concept. And said reversible concept adds a new wrinkle to his task here. Not only must he consider how his version of No. 6’s green interacts with No. 6, he also needs to consider how it will work when played as part of Red No. 12, a borderline-drivable par four.

This nixes my first idea, which would be to add a tongue to the green, reminiscent of MacKenzie’s original designs at Augusta National. Stretching this tongue in any way toward the Red No. 12 tee weakens that hole, and does so without making Black No. 6 more strategically compelling. Perhaps, however, MacKenzie can utilize an existing feature that I don’t quite understand and create something with both personality and procedure.

A steep-faced bunker exists at the back-left of the green when played from the Black side, and at the back right when played from the Red side. It looks like a tough escape…but I’m just not sure it’s in a position to contend with shots unless the flag is perched near its edge, which would be a relatively rare occasion.

If, however, the green were expanded backwards and wrapped around the bunker, it could create two tiers, divided by the bunker, the lower of which would become the challenge flag for both holes. Those on No. 6B’s fairway would need to control their spin in the hopes of feeding the ball down the backslope (those rolling nearer to the bunker would feed toward the flag, while those farther out from the hazard would head in the opposite direction). Laying up ahead of the green , players can wrestle with whether to contend with the up-and-down slope via an array of wedge shots or the putter.

MacKenzie will probably also add a bunker along the right of the fairway, not cut in too aggressively, but just so players have something to think about when heading up that side, which is still the preferred angle of attack for aggressive players.

The reversible necessity of the hole prevented me from adding my intended hazard…the Chain Chomp from ‘Mario.’ (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)

What would happen if DONALD ROSS redesigned NO. 7 at FOREST DUNES?

Forest Dunes, the course, may have been better for the lack of The Loop. Or for the lack of Tom Doak, Coore and Crenshaw, and all who have dominated the direction of strategic golf during the 21st Century. Played in a vacuum, I would emphatically hold Tom Weiskopf’s early-millennium option as a standard to be held for Ohio’s parkland golf courses. The Loop, however, turned a mirror toward Forest’s weaknesses. The biggest of which was a literal and metaphorical struggle to meld the course’s identities. Metaphorically, the resort emphasized dual identities within the course, both the “forest” and the “dunes.” In terms of actual presentation, this seemed emphasized by hard lines drawn between them.

The issue peaks, I believe, at No. 7. Look into the green on this short par five and see, to the left, a pair of manicured parkland bunkers. Look to the right and see an attempt at more native waste, with a “wild” tree island in the middle. The view is an anecdote for Weiskopf’s inability to realize the two needn’t be – shouldn’t be – mutually exclusive. An ideal example occurs at No. 5, where the large sandy areas defining its fairways are proper waste, dotted with gravel and growth. It is, at least compared to the rest of the course, natural to the eye.

For the sake of this exercise, it would be cheating to suggest a total overhaul of the turf type and maintenance practices of the Dunes course. Fortunately, however, a different member of our architectural panel has experience with parkland golf and, based on a round at Pine Needles this year, a knowledge of incorporating sandy terrain into courses in an aesthetically pleasing manner. (Donald Ross, if those hints weren’t blunt enough).

This is a short par five, 537 yards from the 7,100-yard tips, and playing downhill at that. It’s reasonable that Weiskopf would defend this slight dogleg…but with trees dotted through the rough? Here’s an opportunity for Ross to do part one of what he did best in North Carolina: Expose sand. Want to add a few scrub pines to match the waste aesthetic seen at No. 5? Ross is okay with that. After all, he may not have as much luck with Pinehurst’s native wiregrass this far north.

Granted, this won’t hamper the skilled golfer nearly as much as the trees would have. The green might even remain reachable in two. Hence why Ross will convert this from a squirt of a par five to a hoss of a par four. The second set of tees, measuring 499 yards, are now the back. The Scot has range when designing par fours, but I personally have always found his monsters more appealing, such as the back-to-back brutes at Inverness nos. 6 and 7.

Continuing to add Ross’s flavor to the mix, the green will be realigned toward the right, calling for his preferred switchback style. The current hole is best played with two draws; now, the player who draws off the tee and settles near the fairway hazard will have a better angle in, albeit one that requires a fade, especially to attack flags on the right side of the green (which has been expanded and rectangularized to more Rossian specifications, while playing more severely from back to front).

To appease the spirit of Weiskopf (and more dramatically enforce the switchback’s demands), Ross will leave the tree island. He doesn’t personally prefer such a hazard but he spent enough time designing in William Flynn country (Philadelphia) to recognize the potential for a singular, well-paced tree. The left side of the green will be a “safe” bailout in the sandhills style, an area lower of the green that still provides a finicky pitch to save par. Those who have bailed far right of the added wasteland will also find an added bunker up the right side, questioning the wisdom of attacking the green.

Not to turn it into an alpha-male “big par 4” contest, but Forest Dunes would now also have the longest par four on the property. Buck up, Loop! (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)

What would happen if TOM WEISKOPF redesigned NO. 12 at TOBACCO ROAD GOLF CLUB?

The last entry came across as a total evisceration of Weiskopf, which I feel kind of bad for. Truth be told, if there’s an architect for whom I straddle a fence, it might be the Ol’ Tom. There are plenty of holes in his oeuvre where I see room for improvement, yet he was also willing to put himself out there – for better or for worse – more so than Nicklaus, Palmer or other player-turned-architects of his era. Architects would be better to guarantee nothing when approaching a project but his promise of at least one drivable par four merits respect, especially for the era in which he entered the design game. Those holes varied in quality but reflected more spirit than floor-model par fours. Enough spirit to offer a helping hand if one of the industry’s most wild stallions might be in a rut.

A “rut” might not be the correct term for Strantz’s efforts at Tobacco Road’s No. 12 hole but its placement in the routing makes the hole a contextual drag.

Consider Nos. 10 and 11. The former, a long par four arching around a sandy waste area. The latter, a reachable par five that arches around a sandy waste area (albeit one that dives as deep as any other hazards on the course). And then you hit No. 12, a medium-length par four that…arches around a sandy waste area. Hmm.

Weiskopf has ideas, gleaned from both his own design career and existing holes at Tobacco, which can help No. 12 develop its own personality, beginning with the green.

First, a personal gripe about Tobacco Road. I’ve noted elsewhere that a majority of the greens gather inward from more than 75% of their edge coverage. This is to say that, to differing degrees, if you get your ball onto the putting surface, it will move inward and stay. No. 12, for instance, pulls balls in from the front but it also operates a bit like a halfpipe, funneling inward from the left and right. If you skirt the left edge of the green, you’re likely to receive a friendly roll inward, versus ending up in the waste.

I, and Weiskopf, prefer the way Strantz handled the green at Tobacco’s No. 4, where the hazard-side of the green sits level, while the right side of the green remains banked. This allows aggressive players to attack the flag directly, while more conservative types might try their luck working the slope back down onto the putting surface. Weiskopf has got more spice for No. 12’s version, however.

The Towering Inferno (not a good nickname for his post-PGA days, but a good nickname nonetheless) exercised a particular idea on several par threes but, to my knowledge, only ones that served as 19th-hole tiebreakers. A mid-green bunker may have been too loosey-goosey for the proper 18 at Forest Dunes, however it would fit in like a polka-dotted elephant at Strantz’s island of misfit toys.

Weiskopf will widen the green a bit and place the pupil at about one-third deep, and two-fifths from the left. This placement leaves the back open for more pin positions, and offers two routes to the pin: right at it for those who hug hazards inside of the fairway, and wider to the right of the bunker for those in less prime position, to try riding the slope down. Although he’s going to even out the shelf to the right of the fairway, there’s still a deep collection area to the right of the putting surface.

One last update, fairway side. Just to differentiate the “one huge hazard” look, which has been utilized on the previous two holes, Weiskopf will go wherever they pull sand from around here and add some dimension to this hazard with a fresh deposit of silica, to be planted with something to hold those mounds together. No one claimed Tobacco Road was supposed to emulate links golf, but no one claimed it was supposed to emulate anything. A few false dunes inside of the No. 12 fairway, instead of another large, flat waste area, will do the hole good.

Speaking of building something…

It’s actually a little shocking in retrospect that Strantz hadn’t already put a bunker in the middle of a green at Tobacco. Maybe he anticipated it would simply be too much for the social media generation. (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)

What would happen if TOM DOAK redesigned NO. 1 at FIRESTONE COUNTRY CLUB’S NORTH COURSE?

Tom Doak may sigh when faced with the opening stretch at Firestone’s North course. He best represents an era where the best architects sign on to work with the best parcels, whereas Robert Trent Jones represented an era where you built a course wherever the client wanted one including, you know, if that means piling fill to create a few holes atop an existing reservoir.

In Jones’s defense, the closing hole he created at North holds up rather well against the spectrum of backbreaking spectacle that Pete Dye ushered in a few years down the line. Furthermore, the north-er of the North’s holes offer more compelling land and, accordingly, personality, than the South course. Again, getting there means building up land that offers the services and topographical variance of lily pads.

Doak tries not to move land so the basic footprint of the first hole will remain the same. That said, he’s going to grant himself the leeway to pile even more dirt on top of the existing pallet to create, literally, something more up his alley.

He’ll begin by building up a levee along the roadside, running for about 225 yards. He can sell this as a “privacy feature” or whatever but, truth be told, it becomes a key defense component in applying one of his more acclaimed holes on Firestone’s property. A single bunker will punctuate the end of the levee, calling bold players to attempt the long shot down the right side for the best angle in. The strategically meaningless bunkers to the left disappear. In fact, the fairway is widened to welcome shots from the cautious player.

What we’re recreating here is No. 6 at Pacific Dunes, which is essentially a Leven in concept. Players who take the risky tee shot over the dune and bunker at Pacific receive the best look into the elevated green. Those who play well left of this hazard realize too late that they’ve short-sided themselves dramatically; even a wedge in must travel up and over a deep bunker and land on a thin green angled perpendicular.

Accordingly, Doak’s green at No. 1 has been elevated to create a similar shot. We don’t need to recreate Pacific’s penalizing bunker; the existing inlet will do the job just fine, while remaining more in character with the rest of the North course.

One other change: Although the back tee will move up, it will only do so slightly, resulting in a hole about 375 yards, longer than Pacific’s version as Firestone should account for significantly less wind challenging players.

Hardly the traditional “gentle handshake,” it’s true, but Doak has hardly done anything traditional and this passes muster.

If you can’t see that this hole is equally brilliant to Pacific Dunes No. 6, then I don’t know what to tell you. (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)

What would happen if ROBERT TRENT JONES redesigned NO. 12 at BROOKSIDE COUNTRY CLUB?

Robert Trent Jones? Renovating a Donald Ross classic? What could possibly go wrong? Ha ha ha.

Given this humorous context, I’ll remind you that the purpose of this exercise is to end up with a better hole than the original, regardless of who is renovating whom. Thus you’ll understand the challenge here, even if No. 12 is the blandest of the short-hole bunch at Brookside.

So let’s start not with what’s broken but with what’s not: The size and shape of the green here are fine. That’s not to say that they’re perfect. Many, many netizens hold Brookside as among Ross’s best collection of putting surfaces. They certainly look wild but I’d hazard they’re a tad overrated. My most frequently asked question to hosts is whether certain portions of the green can house pins. Too often at Brookside, the answer was “no.” No. 12 was certainly an instance, with a significant chunk of the green’s front rejecting balls all the way down to the creek below (not into the creek but providing a nasty pitch back up). Therefore I concur with Tyler Rae’s master plan, which calls for softening this green at the front.

Sounds like I, and RTJ, are going soft, but we’ll want the front to be attractive, for reasons to be seen in a minute.

First, we’ll angle this green a bit more from left to right; the tees will adjust, obviously becoming longer for the more skilled player, but will also be situated farther to the right, to emphasize increased shot-shaping to hit this green at the proper angle. In Jones’s style, the green’s rise from front-to-back will present as two clear tiers, versus a continuous grade.

The nice thing for those hitting from this tee, located near the property’s peak, is the best view into this green, where the back edge of the putting surface melts into a newly placed back bunker. Those attacking back pins may be tempted to attempt a longer putt rather than running over.

This bunker, along with that at the front-right, will be in Jones’s “cape-and-bay” style, where an outward “cape” creates “bays” within the hazard. Jones will be more nuanced in their design for this project, positioning these capes to most punish the golfer who ends up nearest to accomplishing their goal. After all, those who have totally screwed up their tee shot – whether that means bombing way over the back edge or coming up way short in the front bunker – are also more likely to be crappy players in general, therefore they need a bit more room to get to safety…not help to accomplish par but help to escape in general.

Conversely, those who just barely miss while attacking a tucked flag are more likely to be low handicappers, and deserve to face a stiffer recovery if they plan on par. Similarly, those who barely trickle off the back edge will have hurdles to cross if they think they can move both vertically and laterally out of a green.

Finally, for the sake of intimidation, a cross bunker will sit some ten yards ahead of the green but, in truth, there is some kindness to this. While the current Ross design doesn’t look quite so scary, the aforementioned severe green will readily feed balls down the fairway into the gully. In Jones’s version, the fairway disappears…balls that hit the green won’t get all the way back. Those that don’t will trickle back to the bunker, which actually isn’t as bad as pitching back up from the bottom of the current fairway. It just looks cooler.

It could have been worse. (Photo Cred: BPBM Graphix Team)