Author: BPBM

At some point in your life as a golf course architecture aficionado, you’ll stumble across a photograph of the No. 12 green at Sitwell Park Golf Club, a Sheffield-area course that doesn’t attract as much international attention these days, despite the name “Alister MacKenzie” on the marquee. You, if anything like me at that point in my understanding of golf course design and construction, will squint your eyes and grin in the “you gotta be kidding me” method.

What is now known on message boards simply as the “Sitwell Park green” was created to combat a routing problem struck by MacKenzie during 1913. The routing required two greens, nos. 12 and 18, sit next to each other while requiring an uphill approach. If he had performed a common “cut and fill” to build the greens atop the hill, the putting surfaces would be both blind and punished but the newly-steepened slope. MacKenzie chose to create a large green that poured down from the top of the hill, full of roll almost unimaginable to the modern player (which you can see below).

Even at the time, local players were scandalized and the green disappeared, replaced with a far more pedestrian model.

The Sitwell Green remains celebrated online. Tom Doak, a proponent, built No. 13 at Barnbougle Dunes as a tribute to the lost putting surface. But even that, one of the funkiest greens on the planet, seems a bit watered down compared to the inspiration.

I began to wonder…with minimalist golf being all the rage, what’s preventing the creation of Sitwell-level green slopes?

Continue reading “The New Sitwell: Are the Alister MacKenzie and Willie Park Greens of Yore Possible in 2021?” »

I was driving along Interstate 70 and decided that I wanted to play a Donald Ross…so I stopped at Broadmoor.

No, not the Denver-area resort. Although that Broadmoor checks all the above boxes, I live in Columbus and needed a quicker fix. That, and an email alerting me to all of the restoration work that had recently been completed by Bruce Hepner, led me to pull up short in Indianapolis and check out the other Broadmoor, a country club on the near-west side of town.

I’m the kind of guy who does bare-bones research in the lead-up to a round — usually looking at Google Map aerials — so I know what to expect and, more importantly, what I should ask about.

Immediately, from one glance at Google, I had several questions, and they all dealt with the bunkering. After playing the course, I had even more.

It’s dangerous to describe a “normal” Donald Ross course, as the architect created almost as many courses as his Golden Age competition combined, which gave him room to wiggle and tweak. I’ve read Golf Has Never Failed Me and I’ve played enough Ross courses to know that no one breaks Ross’s rules as much as Ross himself.

That said, the bunkering at Broadmoor struck me as highly irregular on three fronts. I was able to speak with Bruce Hepner, who oversaw the restoration for Broadmoor, so he could set the record straight on these three aspects of Broadmoor’s bunkering.

Continue reading “The Bunkers at Broadmoor (Indiana) Country Club and The Indefinable Donald Ross” »

Nothing is more annoying than a humble brag posturing as a blog post. You’ve played a Top 100 golf course, and you’re sharing it with us by profiling said course! Thank you! The good news for you, my humble readers, is that I have not played a Top 100 course to crow down to you about. Nope.

But yeah, I totally landed a tee time at Moraine Country Club for next month and I’m pretty happy about it.

But in the name of journalistic integrity, as well as my own genuine curiosity, I sought out more information on Alex “Nipper” Campbell, the Scottish pro who designed Moraine. Namely: “What else did he do?”

The one-hit wonders of golf course architecture hold an appeal in their “what if.” What if George Crump had spread his apparent talents wider, rather than just dying over Pine Valley? Why couldn’t Henry Fownes have just done one more, away from Oakmont?

Moraine may be one tier below these courses, but not by far. The “mystery” of Crump and Fownes is relatively easy to put a lid on: “Sure, they could have created other world-class courses, but they didn’t.” Campbell and Moraine is more mysterious, because the golfer designed several other courses, none of which compare to his peak. “One-hit wonders” happen frequently in the music business, where one great album simply doesn’t translate into the future. We’re biased…but it seems that golf course architecture shouldn’t work that way.

Shouldn’t brilliance that resulted in a monument like Moraine have shown its face at other locations?

Campbell’s other offerings around the Dayton area certainly display some quirk, and no doubt the years have removed features that may better display Campbell’s skill.

Don’t worry: This isn’t a post attempting to claim Alex Campbell did not design Moraine Country Club. Rather, it’s an attempt to claim that Campbell’s hands were involved in the creation of several other courses…clubs more noteworthy than the majority of his remaining discography.

So here are several other courses where Campbell may have had a hand, and where he hasn’t received his due for it. From most likely to least likely:

Continue reading “Alex “Nipper” Campbell and Potential, Unacknowledged Architectural Brilliance at 3 Major Hosts beyond Moraine” »

As a blogger, I frequently find myself behind-the-times…intrigued by themes exposed in that weekend’s PGA play…which means they’re behind-the-times even if I hit “publish” on Monday. I found myself in a similar situation this weekend, while considering one hole at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium course. 

The good news (a first for me!): The theme this hole inspired remains relevant as 2021 is a strange year that, thanks to last year’s COVID cancellation, will feature three major golf tournaments hosted at Pete Dye designs (note lowercase “major,” Players haters). 

Pete Dye’s not the first name that comes to mind when you think “templates,” but he’s got them. The most prominent (and worst) was on full display this weekend, as Sawgrass’s famous island par three turned Thursday into an Italian horror film for many pros. Dye’s second most-popular template, which can be found across almost every one of his designs, is the Double Dogleg par five, a concept he took from A.W. Tillinghast and now truly owns. Even Tillinghast (Dylan) would have to admit Dye’s (Hendrix) version was better. 

Dye liberally used another concept that was popularized by another architect, and this one is far less recognizable to the average GCA enthusiast…intentionally so. Dye certainly liked to play the “wild card” persona, which meant going out of his way to make it appear he wasn’t just copping a look from the MacRaynor factory when working with perhaps the most revered template of them all.

Here’s how Pete Dye took radical approaches to the Redan, and where you’ll see them during the 2021 championship season (plus a few bonus versions). 

Continue reading “Pete Dye’s Redans and the 2021 Major* Circuit (Whistling Straits, Kiawah Ocean Course and…yes, TPC Sawgrass)” »

Perhaps you’ve heard: The Keiser family is establishing a literal clone of the legendary Lido Golf Club outside of its Sand Valley Resort in central Wisconsin. It’s to 2021 what the opening of Bandon Sheep Ranch was to 2020: the headline we golf course architecture people will milk for the rest of the year. 

The key word in Lido’s description is “legendary”; not because the course is some figment of an idealistic imagination but because it’s become a pillar of worship for architecture enthusiasts. 

Perhaps it truly was the single greatest golf club ever made and perhaps not. Regardless, it’s certainly the lost golf club we romanticize more than any other. Part of the problem is we’ve made room in our mind for just the one no-longer-existing golf club, in the same way that most dads have only made room for one metal band (Metallica, and the “Black” album more specifically). 

There are many other MacRaynor courses that have since gone under. Were they quite the gems that Lido was? Maybe not…but we also don’t really know, do we? They may not have a Santa Claus-level of mystique but we’re talking Macdonald-Raynor here. These courses were at least Easter Bunnies. 

Here are seven lost MacRaynors that might not have become Lido-level iconoclasts…but should certainly be on the mind of Gil Hanse, Tom Doak, or whatever architect wants to next create a MacRaynor tribute. 

Continue reading “In Light of The Nu Lido, 7 Other MacRaynor No-Longer-Existing Courses That MIGHT Be Worth a Recreation” »

Using a highly unscientific method (namely the opinions of participants pre- the 2019 PGA Championship), we can assume the average golfer should not expect to break 120 at Bethpage Black. You know all about the rough and the massive bunkers. You know about the sign telling people (like you or me) to spare ourselves the shame and turn back. 

The greens are also legendary. Legendarily boring. I would hazard the same average golfer, while on the way to their 121, would not putt more than 36 times. I have admittedly spent my entire golfing career banking on the assumption that if I can get on in regulation, par is guaranteed. Hardly true at most championship venues, this assumption is especially true at Bethpage Black (and its brother, Bethpage Red). 

It’s as if whoever designed the course (more on that in a jiff) wanted golfers to feel better after the hardships they overcame on the way to the green and thus presented a pancake to putt upon. 

That sort of logic doesn’t jive with Black’s wider purpose, which is no longer to serve as “the people’s country club,” but rather bring big events (and cash) to the municipality. The iconic nature of its brutality has waned a bit in that regard. Tiger Woods was the only player to break even during the 2002 Open (-3), five players broke even during ‘09 (Lukas Glover winning with -4) and then the dam burst for the ‘12 and ‘16 Barclays, where a minus was required to finish within the Top 35 and 30, respectively. The 2019 PGA took a U.S. Open approach to conditioning but Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson still managed to smoke their way to -8 and -6, respectively. 

Black is no doubt still highly-equipped for PGA play, relative to the course competition. But some new greens would go a long way.

Confronting the course’s authorship is the first step in overcoming the conservative hump. 

Continue reading “An Immodest Proposal: Totally Overhaul Bethpage Black’s Greens for Tillinghast’s Sake” »

I’ve been attempting to catch up on golf literature and my wife assisted this Christmas with a copy of Golf Has Never Failed Me, a compilation of Donald Ross’s scant writings, organized to provide insight into the Scot’s approach to golf course design.

It won’t provide many mind-boggling realizations for those who have a generalized understanding of Ross’s rather generalized style. Simply the bare necessities for planning a golf course (from finding a property to draining it) and the strategy of laying it out (from routing to Ross’s range of sand hazards).

There was one subject that intrigued me, however, which Ross put far more emphasis on than the average 2020 GCA conversant:

Tees.

“The old courses in England had separate tees at every hole. The old courses had tees so long and wide that you never knew what kind of shot you were going to have at any given hole,” he wrote. “The modern golf course should either have tees fifty yards long or three or four separate tees at every hole.”

That’s a lot of tee…a lot more than you see at the average golf club during 2020. So I got to thinking…what holes would benefit from the application of this Ross principle? The possibilities were endless, but I’ve narrowed it down.

Many are tweeting their “best golf courses I played for the first time during 2020” lists. So I decided to jump onboard the rubbing-it-in train, while also creating some worthwhile conceptual content (hopefully).

So here are the six best courses I played for the first time during 2020 (not in order), with emphasis on how they currently practice Ross’s teachings or, more likely, my radical reinterpretation of one of that course’s tees to change the hole’s play.

Continue reading “50-Yard Tees Have Never Failed Me: One Lesson from Ross & The Best Courses BPBM Played in 2020” »

A recent round of golf played made me consider what made for quality residential golf, and it seems like I haven’t been the only one thinking on it. Adam Lawrence of Golf Course Architecture just dropped a feature in last month’s issue, speaking with golf course architects on how to best bring golf courses and housing together.

A slight bother in that conversation, for someone who lives in Columbus, is that Coore and Crenshaw’s new Cabot St. Lucia is that these are not the same caliber of course I’m referring to when I refer to “residential golf.” I may not be talking about poor people, but I am talking about Ohio.

Said recent round was on a course designed by none other than Arthur Hills, which exuded healthy habits in building a real estate development course.

Yeah, Arthur Hills is the good guy in this story.

Continue reading “Looking for the formula for residential golf in Ohio at Stone Ridge Golf Club” »

Donald Ross fans in Ohio are in the midst of a few good years. At the top of the list, most obviously, is Andrew Green’s restoration at the Inverness Club, and Scioto Country Club will seek to usurp the throne (as the state’s preeminent Ross) when Green undertakes an overhaul during 2021. Brookside Country Club in Canton beat both to the punch when Brian Silva restored its Rossiness during 2003. Although not quite at major-host level like those courses, Kevin Hargraves’s work at Columbus Country Club is earning raves.

The Columbus metro area will continue the theme, at least theoretically: Some big-name, big-walleted Denison University alums are making it possible for Gil Hanse to create a masterplan for the school’s course, which was designed by Ross as Granville Golf Club. We’re hoping like heck work begins sooner than later, and we’re especially eager to see what happens between holes Nos. 14 to 17.

Continue reading “Hints for Gil Hanse from Donald Ross (or just us) as He Makes a Denison Golf Club Master Plan” »

This blog is not about how Bandon Trails is my favorite course at Bandon; I’ve only played two of them and I’ve got to side with the majority of raters in that Pacific Dunes was the better of the two. That said, there’s something about Bandon Trails that is inherently bloggable; it’s a non-links course among four trve links courses (a contentious argument on several fronts)…and that’s probably why I’ve seen more blog posts about Trails than I have any other course. Even if Trails is on numerous Top 100 in The World lists, we sometimes act like it’s the ugly little Bandon brother.

Basically, people like me feel like we’re fighting some hipster battle when we declare Trails to be our favorite at Bandon (I make a similar argument regarding St. Anger being the best Metallica album post-“Black”).

But again, this isn’t a blog post about why Trails is actually the best (and seriously, I don’t hold it against anyone who believes that to be true). Pacific Dunes was the best course I’ve yet had the opportunity to play, but right now I haven’t quite formulated thoughts beyond the standard 18-hole-tour blog post thesis: “dude, the views” (I’ve gotten a bit beyond that but I’m not sure it’s an interesting post).

So I too am writing about Bandon Trails. And my topic is “dude, the views.”

Continue reading “3 Holes at Bandon Trails Your Pre-Round Research Won’t Prepare You For (For The Better)” »