Askernish After 10 Years: Part 3--The Golf Course / April 27, 2020 by Brett Hochstein

*Six-somes allowed. (photo credit: Toby Brearly)*

This month is the 10 year anniversary of a life-changing trip to a golf course far away and lost in time: Askernish. To both reflect upon it as well as occupy my time during this pandemic crisis, I have been rolling out a multi-part series that explores my thoughts, emotions, and lessons learned from a legendary week on the links. Part 1 discusses the physical and mental act of getting there, while the second segment focuses on a fun exercise of routing a course on links land like it is 1891. This is Part 3 though, which talks about the existing golf course itself.

Day 3 (Continued)

We wrapped up our walk throughs of our routings in the mid afternoon and walked back in to the clubhouse (the actual one—not the old stone circle ruins) across the golf course. While on this walk, it was an obvious occurrence to many of us what we should do with the rest of our time on this clear, calm, blue-bird afternoon—play the golf course!

Besides going around a couple of the first few holes the night before, we had not yet had time to experience the full course, especially not the part that people travel far and wide to play—the middle stretch from 7-16. As it was a perfect, warm, and bizarrely calm and quiet afternoon, I absolutely couldn’t wait to get out and knock it around this natural golf ground that I had been thinking about for over a year.

People talk about how the course doesn’t really get started until the 7th hole and even go so far as to describe the early holes as “boring” or a “cow pasture.” While technically that second part is true, I really like the early holes, and the cow pasture part only enhances the experience, not detracts. What is also true is that this land in the early holes around the clubhouse was in fact more subdued, the reason being that much of it was bulldozed flat in the 1930s for landing planes at the onset of WWII. There was still much beauty it in though, especially in providing a contrast for what was to come.

We teed off out into the wide open field of short grass that is the par 5 first hole. Well, almost wide open. Occupying various parts of the fairway, about 20 cattle stood in the way, almost like fielders on a baseball diamond. It was a surreal experience to say the least hitting into them, next to them, and walking by. Again, there was almost no wind on this day and therefore almost no noise, outside of the occasional grunt or “moo!” For this, it goes right up there with the 1st and 9th of St Andrews for most memorable flat holes I have ever played.

*The author heading straight into the opening hole’s main hazard: cattle. (photo credit: Toby Brearly)*

When you get to the green and its large left-to-right kicker, you realize just how different and cool this whole thing is. For one, you have to carefully step over an electric shock wire that helps keep the cows and sheep off the greens. There are also the putting surfaces themselves, which have a variety of micro-undulation at a frequency, sharpness, and scale that I have never seen. A twenty foot putt could break 5 different ways. While some may think that is goofy or gimmicky, I think it is fun and also helps separate the better and more intuitive players from the rest.

The second hole is a cool little par 3 with the green tucked halfway around a small dune-form on the right. It also runs away from you and to the right, so a clever player can work it around. If you haven’t noticed yet, the ground game is prominent here.

The next few holes work in a little counter-clockwise loop before heading back to the clubhouse and eventually the bigger dunes. The 3rd hole is a little teaser dogleg. At 270 yards, the green is tempting for a longer hitter. Plenty of bad lies or even a lost ball await a miss though, and I would just as soon play safely out into the fairway and leave a wedge or a bump shot in.

4 turns back northward and is quite a cool hole with a wide fairway that gradually narrows and falls away on both sides at the pinch point. You want to take on that pinch point as much as you can though, as the green is one of the more difficult to hit with a number of small falloffs surrounding it.

We started out the round in separate groups, but by the 5th hole, we decided to all join up and play together. Despite slowing down the pace of play, this was a good idea and would turn out to make the post round discussions much livelier and on point.

The 5th hole itself is easier on your game and your eyes in comparison to the 4th. The tee shot is elevated on a dune, offering a great view across the simple plain of the opening holes as well as the Atlantic Ocean. The gentle dogleg curls to the left and finishes at a saddle-like green that also has a lot of back to front tilt. Even simpler holes like this are very compelling because of how strong the contouring is. Overall, the greens throughout the course have a very nice mix of both big and small contour. In a lot of places they fall away from the golfer. Keeping them at speeds of 8 or lower on the stimpmeter helps allow for this and makes the golf both more fun and more interesting. Listening to the most recent “Salon” on Derek Duncan’s Feed the Ball podcast, Bill Coore talked about modern green speeds and how they are “putting the cart before the horse.” In many cases of modern golf design, we have been letting green speeds dictate contour and shape on the greens instead of contour and shape dictating speed. How is that right? Why would you want to limit the one aspect of golf design that has the greatest impact on interest and over the smallest area? It does not make sense. Visiting and playing Askernish and its wild natural greens is a refreshing departure from that.

Another benefit and reason for the reduced speeds is that it also keeps from damaging the natural grass that makes up the greens. Remember, these were all just simply chewed or mowed down. No sodding, no seeding, no USGA sand and gravel profiles. This is the real thing.

*The wonderful pastoral landscape around the clubhouse is a nice warmup for what is to come.*

Back to the golf. Hole 6 was a long par 5 playing back along the simple ground that used to be a runway for prop planes. The green finished at a ridge and fell away, which was kind of clever if a little goofy compared to convention. Shots both long and short would have to be expertly judged to get close to the hole. If it was a long shot played along the ground, you would want to pace it to just barely crest the ridge and then trickle down over it. If it was a short shot played in the air, you would want to land it as closely to the ridge as possible and have it trickle down. Being too aggressive leaves a long but reasonably friendly recovery shot; being short means trying to accomplish the same thing again.

I use the past tense above because it was a clever green but has since moved closer to the beach edge as per Tom Doak’s suggestion. I haven’t seen the hole since that change, but I loosely remember the ground that the green would get moved to and think that it could be a good change that further engages the natural advantages of the course—the bright blue Atlantic Ocean the advantage in this case.

The approach and arrival at the 7th tee is the “A-ha!” moment of the round where everyone stops and goes silent with mouth agape, perhaps miming the word “wow” to themselves before going to reach for the camera. As Erik Anders Lang eloquently states upon his first sight of the hole, “It was like the acid kicked in and everything became colorful.” I can’t speak to the details of hallucinogenics, but, yeah, that sounds about right. All of a sudden, the land is completely different. Heaving dunes tumble as far as you can see while the ocean and white sand beach sit on the right with the mountainous Isle of Barra in the distance. The golf plays down through a large dune valley, winding its way about to the green as if it were truly designed. And I suppose it was, just not so by any men or machines. It is a magical golf hole and moment of experience.

Not only is the hole easy on the eyes, the golf itself also really works strategically. To get a visible angle into the green and avoid the sharp dune on the left, you need to take on the dune on the right. Longer hitters can clear it, while shorter hitters will have to try and get their ball to stop on the top of it where the fairway rides over. A running shot with of careful judgement and speed can then make its way up to the green, which falls from right to left and is guarded on the right by a sharp ridge (which was too sharp at the time but has since been softened by the talented hands of Eric Iverson). If trying to fly the ball onto the green though, you will want to avoid that right greenside ridge and come in more from the left, taking on the big, wooly dune in the process. That will help to hold the ball on the right-to-left tilting surface. No matter your game and skillset, the hole will hold your interest.

Of course, you can make all that above strategy moot and pop a huge fade out onto the beach, as some golfers do (see photo on right or above). One of the charms though of Askernish is there is no out of bounds. All land is in play, and that just connects you even more to the natural setting. So when I see my ball sitting 40 feet below on the beach, did you think I was going to play it? Hell yes I was going to play it! I don’t remember exactly what happened with the shot (which means I probably chunked it into even worse position), but I will always remember the fun and thrill of going down and trying it.

Hole 8 is a drivable (270 yard) par 4 high on the bluff with a crevasse intruding upon the right side of the fairway. The green, which is partially tucked behind a large dune on the left, is also guarded by a couple of the few formal bunkers on the course. While the bunkers on the other holes were natural sand scrapes and there were numerous small sandy spots throughout the course made by the rabbits, these bunkers were actually the result of cleaning up some rubbish areas. As the team cleared out the junk and were left with thin turf coverage, the most sensible thing was to formalize them into the course’s first bunkers. Off the tee, you will want to take on the intruding crevasse and trouble on the right, either clearing it or, if the wind is really strong, getting close to it. This will help get you a better angle into the green, as the bunkers and a large dune guard the left side of it.

*Take on the trouble to the right to get an angle around the first bunkers on the golf course.*

9 and 10 both continue outward along the seaside. 9 has a rising tee shot playing straight out toward the ocean, and those who play too carelessly may just find it. Like the 8th, the angle is also better playing close to the danger on the right, which I understand is much more in play now with the fairway being mowed closer to the bluff edge. That angle over there on the edge increases visibility and gives a longer look down a green that sits precariously on a very narrow shelf. Being short isn’t great, but being long is death. While the hole is only 341 yards, it is very demanding, even rating as the 3rd most difficult according to the handicap stroke index.

The 10th turns back inland a bit, but we aren’t ready to fully head back yet. It tees off marvelously near the ocean and out over a crevasse to the fairway beyond. The target is narrow but friendly in shape as balls hit out to the sides will feed back toward the middle. Blow one out to the right over the edge of the ridge though, and you might as well concede the hole to your partner. The green is also in kind of a saddle, but shots coming up a bit short will find themselves trickling back toward the golfer. All the holes are obviously natural, but this one really feels that way as the green is a true continuation of the fairway.

11 is a par 3 that gets a good amount of attention, and deservedly so. With views of the Atlantic, the long one-shotter to a tabletop green demands a good play over a deep valley. It’s a long, unsettling shot, and when I was there I found it a bit too penal as most short shots would either snag up in a small dune or catch a depression that fed into a steep road that would suck your ball down into a 40 foot deep pit. There is a bailout to the right, but it falls away and can kick your shot off over the bluff top. I think there has since been a little work to the approach on this hole, but I cannot fully comment on it without having seen it. With the length on shot and many needing to bounce the ball on though, it would be a beneficial spot to do some gentle alteration, at the very least cutting off the feeder into the road.

—

This might be a good place for some commentary on that topic: is alteration at Askernish a good thing? This was hotly debated during the week when we were there with the “new” course not even being a year old yet. It was so much a debate that I also knew my former (though not yet for another year and a half) boss Tom Doak was involved with some additional consulting.

Obviously, the course had been “found” and, outside of some small shaping work for the tees, simply mowed down to playable golf height. It was completely natural and unaltered, and that made for both an intriguing story and great study into the origins of golf before land was alter-able. But there were admittedly some places on the course that were a bit rough and sharp and didn’t work as well you would hope for the types of golf shots you would want to play in a given situation. The 6th, with its green set away from the land edge, and the 7th, with its very sharp greenside ridge, have already been discussed. I just mentioned the 11th, and later on I will talk about the 16th, which was maybe the fiercest ongoing debate of all. The common theme among all of these holes (outside of the 6th) is that they have/had very sharp, dramatic features that impede ground game shots, the ground being too steep or rugged for anything to run through without a very lucky bounce.

I have to state here that I LOVE the romanticism of the untouched ground story, and there is so much there that all factions of the industry can learn from it. I have to also agree with the suggestions eventually made by Doak to soften a few things. Askernish is not just a cool place and cool story. It’s also a really damn good golf course. And if you can make just a few small tweaks, keeping the ground generally in place and just making it more amenable to a ball rolling through it, you can make it that much better. The key is having a very soft hand, deeply understanding the types of contours found throughout the course, and re-turfing with the same native grass. Fortunately, all of that was in place with Eric Iverson shaping and plenty of sods available.

Because it was to be done like this in the right way, I was in favor of the tweaks, despite it maybe ruining a little bit of the purity of the story. It is all for the better of the golf experience though. It certainly isn’t change for the sake of change, which would be disastrous on such sacred ground. A part of me also thinks that Old Tom very well might have done the same things—shovel, spade, and wheelbarrow in tow. After all, he altered many spots out on The Old Course, including the 18th green where he built up the entire “flat table-land.” Who is to say he wouldn’t have done the same to Askernish? When put this way, maybe it isn’t as much of a deviation from the story as I first thought…

—

Getting back to the golf and the 12th hole, which is probably my favorite on the whole course. Many of the holes have a “choose your adventure” element to them, especially when the grass is chewed down by the animals like it was during our visit. The 12th though is very much that, moreso than any other hole out here. The long, downhill par 5 tees off from the edge of the sand bluff and plays over perhaps the best golfing ground on the whole course before finishing beautifully at the low-land edge of the machair, the reflective water of the nearby lochs shimmering in the distance. It should be noted also that these are the same type of golf-scale dunes talked about in Part 2 and where our 2nd and 3rd holes were routed.

I am a huge fan of the way this hole experiences every landscape type found throughout the course on one single hole. You have the ocean and white sand beach to your back. The most dramatic dunes are still there off to the left while you play over the intermediate ones through the hole. The mountains and distant Barra are still present, and then you finish on a wonderful green slightly perched over the flattest lowest section of the machair, which bleeds off into moorland and eventually the water of the lochs within it. The landscape value of the hole is incredible, but the golf is fantastic too.

*The 12th green sits in a stunning spot that is a remarkable contrast from where the hole started. Photo taken from and courtesy of Askernish Golf Club*

At the tee, you have your first choice on the hole. Try for the longer carry and narrower fairway out to the left, or play more safely to the shorter and wider one on the right. If you bail right, you are left with a blind shot over a big ridge and another decision to make: play a shot of about 150-170 yards to the left fairway but have a tougher angle to the green, play the same yardage shot straightaway to leave a little bit better angle but still 160 to the hole, or rip a 3 wood and hope to find the approach fairway about 210-230 yards away and have 100 or less to the hole. If you go left off the tee, your options are similar, but finding the approach fairway is much easier as well as visible. Brave, long hitters may even try to have a crack at the green, but because of a fronting ridge and a greenside bunker (this one wholly natural) on the left, it is a very tough shot to pull off. Overall, it is a brilliant, fun, rollicking hole and one you can play a different way each time you tee it up.

13 is bit of a breather and a nice little connector hole with more of the wonderful views out across the machair on the right. Its reverse-cant fairway wraps to the left uphill to a tucked green that has some surprising danger at its back. That danger is a sharp falloff and a return to the dramatic dunesland, which the par 3 14th plays right into the teeth of. The dangerous, mid-length par one-shotter plays across a valley to a little tabletop green just sitting there beautifully. Seeing this flat oasis with falloffs all around and knowing it was unaltered makes similar versions you see on other links courses that much more believable.

*The 14th is a wonderful and challenging par 3 that was awaiting perfectly for the team to claim as a hole.*

15 is a shorter par 4 playing through similarly choppy ground. A pinching, crowned fairway makes it effectively play longer though, with the smart play leaving about a 150 yard shot for the second. Originally Martin and Gordon were looking at a par 5 hole with a green further along over a big ridge, but they instead settled on something much shorter and what is my favorite green on the whole course—a shallow little halfpipe that is a blast hitting shots into. The fronting slopes are highest on the left and right, and in between them is a bit of a downhill halfpipe running perpendicular to the green that can be used to help funnel shots through. Even though the shot into the green might only require a higher lofter club for some, it is perhaps a safer play to land it short and bounce it into the bowl. Trying to fly it onto the green and coming up just shy could see you catch the downslope and have your ball rocket on through the green and into the long grass at the back. This is one of those greens though where the recovery shots are so fun, it is almost more enjoyable to miss it on the approach.

Above gallery: the awesome 15th green as seen from the front (left) and right (right)

On to 16 and the controversy mentioned before. The par 4 doglegs slightly right and finishes at a pretty extreme elevated green. The approach to it is very steep and wall-like, which kills just about any sort of running shot. At the top of the wall-like ridge sits a very shallow shelf where, when we played it, the hole was often placed. Beyond the shelf, it falls very steeply in undulating fashion.

As we debated the hole back in the clubhouse, I could see its merits as a true “adventure” type hole and how it functions for match play, but in the end I just thought that trying to land on the top section crossed the threshold of deft skill into daft luck. I said that as well even after getting a 4 iron to stick up there (it required a perfect, speed killing bounce just off the top of the wall in front of the green). Indeed, Eric Iverson and Tom Doak, along with Martin Ebert, did some work on it shortly thereafter, moving the green down to more of a full time position in the back area below and making that more receptive. All the comments I have heard from everyone since have been glowing, and I am quite interested to see how it now plays.

*Looking back over the 16th green with the 9th fairway in the distance. The green for 16 is now located in the low section closer to this perspective.*

I can’t really speak much to the par 3 17th, as it has been moved to a different location from a tough-to-get-close high spot on the right down to a longer but lower and more protected green on the left. It’s another change I would like to see and experience.

Returning home on the par 5 18th is also a return to the simpler ground surrounding the clubhouse, and some may find it to be something of a let down compared to the previous stretch. I disagree though. For one, the views across the broad landscape to the right and straight ahead are beautiful. It also plays around an old cattle pen, its earthen cops still prominent and intruding upon play to the left on the inside of the dogleg. The approach to the large finishing green is perfect for a bouncing shot, the land much simpler yet still slightly tilted and containing plenty of wrinkle to keep your attention, especially on the green itself. After the preceding long stretch of holes meandering the massive dunes, I felt this open, subdued finish to be a nice, relaxing sort of come-down to complete the round. Just as it started slow and easy, it now does the same over the very ground you began upon, the round tying together full circle.

The walk back to the clubhouse is actually a bit long, but it is perfect. Strolling along this same, grazed-down ground, it gives the golfer plenty of time to recall what they just experienced as well as soak up the landscape upon them. It makes me realize that many rounds of golf end too abruptly. All of a sudden you walk off the last green and find yourself immediately in the clubhouse or worse yet, the parking lot changing your shoes. The discord from one space, both mentally and physically, is jarring. Just as we allow ourselves a moment to digest after a fine meal, we could use more the lengthy, reflective post-round walks after experiencing a fine course like that at Askernish.

*We could use more contemplative walks like this after the 18th. Of course, if you aren’t of that mindset and easily get bored, just drop a ball and chip your way back.*

———

As we headed back in and recalled our round, we noticed some smoke streaking across the sky coming from some nearby hills. It continued to grow, and the trail of it shifted to obscure the sun for the first time in hours, turning it a deep pink/red behind the streaky black smoke. It was rather stunning.

We also asked Paul to help us on a grocery run. We needed food (and beverages). At the Co-op (a common small-scale Scottish grocery chain), we loaded up on supplies for that night as well the next few. Some guys planned to cook a dinner together. I don’t know if it was subliminal messaging provided by the many sheep or my own penchant, either real or imagined, for living locally off the land, but I went rogue from the group and got myself a little leg of lamb to roast.

In that same vein, the other American, Price, kept asking the club members to put him in touch with a local fish monger to get some fresh shellfish from the nearby waters. On night two, still no luck or word despite being told they’d be able to come up with something.

My perfectly medium-rare lamb rather disgusted the Brits, who for some reason like their meat gray and dry. It was perfect for my tastes though and would provide some good leftovers for the following night. We wrapped up our meals and walked outside to bask in the twilight. As we did, we noticed the smoke was more intense. As we turned around toward the mountains, we also noticed that the fire was now visible in the waning light, and it was impressive.

*The fire from the mountains was calling, and we must go…*

With some wine from dinner and a few pints of Tennant’s in us, we got the wise idea to take a walk and chase the fire, not knowing whether it was a controlled burn or a wildfire. Remember that youthful idiocy I described at the end of Part 1? Turns out two days was not enough time to grow out of it. The walk started out with 3 or 4 of us, dressed in warmer clothes and armed with a few more silver cans for the walk. I also brought my camera, even though I knew capturing shots without a tripod was going to be tough.

As we walked out to the island’s main road, a paved one-lane highway, we realized this thing was actually some distance away. At that point it was close to full darkness, and a couple of the others bailed, leaving just Toby and myself. We were committed and determined at that point. As we walked along, we gained ground but not nearly at the pace we would have thought. Eventually, we realized the fire was burning away from us and that this truly was a game of chasing. Still, despite our beers running out some 20 minutes ago or so, we decided we were too close not to press on and reach it.

And reach it we did. The flashing lights from the fire trucks spun through the peat-smelling smoke. The firefighters were scattered all about, but there was no sense of urgency in their movements. This was a controlled burn under control, and it was nearing the end of its run. Perhaps a bit disappointed but still happy with taking on the adventure, we headed back down the one lane highway toward the house, tired and weary-eyed. As it was approaching 1 AM with still a ways to go, I stuck out my thumb to hitchhike for the first time in my life. If it weren’t for the overwhelming friendliness of the islanders, I might not have done it, but it seemed well worth the extra 30-40 minutes of sleep we’d get. Needless to say the two cars we saw on the whole walk did not stop for us, but that was all fine. Walking back the whole way gave a sense of completeness to the journey.

Once again, I had stayed up way too late in order to gain a new experience, and while it was exhausting it was also worth it. After all, you don’t write on your website about the early bed time and good night sleep you got ten years prior. You write about the time you walked 4 miles down the road in pitch black on a remote foreign island to chase down a fire that may or may not be controlled.

Morning came, and opening the eyes and standing up out of bed were as hard as could be imagined. There were very few things that could get me up and moving with motivation that morning, but our activity for that day was certainly one of them: building a links bunker using the methods of Old Tom Morris. I couldn’t wait to get back out there.

Part 4 will get into some nitty gritty bunker work and should appear later this week. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

Askernish After 10 Years: Part 2--Route it Like Old Tom / April 21, 2020 by Brett Hochstein

This week is the 10 year anniversary of a life-changing trip to a golf course far away and lost in time: Askernish. To both reflect upon it as well as occupy my time during this pandemic crisis, I am rolling out a multi-part series that explores my thoughts, emotions, and lessons learned from a legendary week on the links. This is Part 2, a look at a wildly fun exercise in which we hypothetically route nine holes over virgin links land, playing by the same rules that Old Tom Morris would have.

Day 2

Have you ever traveled somewhere new and arrived in the darkness of night? Remember what it was like to wake up the next morning and see a brand new scene and landscape?

It is a completely different sensation from traveling and arriving by day, where the landscape and scene slowly morphs and changes to the one that awaits you at your final destination. Instead of a slow buildup, it’s more like going into a theatre and having them pull up the curtain not to reveal the stage but rather the new world you’ve ventured to. It’s intense, wonderful, and fleetingly exciting. It’s like waking up on Christmas morning and opening every present at once.

My first daylight reveal of Askernish was no different. Out my bedroom window, there it all was, basking in yet another golden sun and deep blue sky. The great grazing plain of the machair is broad and low-lying, dipping down to ground water levels in many places before rising back up into the heaving dunes along the beach. Colors and textures are varied, sheep are quite present, structures are few, and trees are completely non-existent—the soil too poor and typical wind far too strong to support any of them. There was no wind though on this exceptionally pleasant day.

*The machair and links waiting to be explored. The small white building is the Askernish clubhouse.*

We started off the week with an incredibly fun task that was very on point with my intended career: routing 9 holes over virgin links land just to the south of the golf course. Martin Ebert of MacKenzie & Ebert International Golf Architects was our instructor for the two day assignment. He was also the lead architect that helped to find the Old Tom Morris routing, or at least route/design the course just as Old Tom would have. This meant simply finding the key features and green sites as they were in the ground. Outside of some handwork to build small tee grounds, this meant no earthmoving. Instead, it was simply just mow it down, and on ye go—play away. For this service, Martin charged a handsome design fee of 9 GBP, the same amount that Old Tom charged back in his time.

How close this version of the course is to Old Tom’s time can never be completely proven, but what is left is an extremely fun, tumbling, varied routing that harkens back to when golf truly was an adventure. Knowing that, this routing exercise with Martin was going to be a lot of fun.

*The clubhouse: somewhere between 2000-6000 years old*

We were teamed up into groups of 2, myself being paired with Toby, the South African. Our constraints were simple—stay south of the existing Askernish course and assume a locked-in clubhouse site that also happened to also be a prehistoric ruin of a small village. Maybe it’s just the American in me with our really old stuff being 200-300 years old, but when I come across something that humans built before Jesus’s time, I kind of freak out a little. This place just continues to amaze in both its beauty and its history.

Toby and I set off in search of golf holes, which were not hard to find. I always liked the notion of a routing being the way you might instinctually walk the ground of a property. With that, we headed straight toward the beach and ocean in a northwesterly direction. There was a fun short par four to be had it seemed and would serve as a fun and beautiful opener. Our instinct was to tuck the green between the beach access road, which was just sand, and a tall dune. This would leave us with a very short opener of about 260 yards and an early decision to make—go at this green or lay back? It would actually be a tough one to pull off due to both the road crossing and the prevailing wind in the face, but I’m sure many would enjoy at least trying. Even though the green is a bit shallower between the dune and road from the left, that is probably the better angle because the green is more receptive from that direction. I don’t necessarily love a forced carry on the opening hole, but it plays a short length, The Old Course does the same thing, and there would be plenty of ground game shots to come during the rest of the round, including at the next hole.

View from the fairway of the short par 4 1st. This is one of the few spots that the dune ridge is low enough to see the ocean. The yellow and red flag has been added to indicate the approximate location of the green.

Heading to the beach and northward also allowed us to easily utilize the narrower, but highly desirable, property between the “clubhouse” and the north border. The ground going back inland from just north of the first green was some of the choppiest dune land available to us, but it was not so extreme as to be unplayable. Not having a hole or two in here would be a real missed opportunity. From a bluff edge over the beach that made a nice spot for a tee, we just walked out into the dunescape without any ideas of par or yardage, instead waiting for an ideal green site to appear. And one did. A wild one.

Tucked in a shallow dell flanked by two large dunes, our green had a large, pointy mound fronting it, which left two “V” slots to its left and right. Some days you would get a peek at the flag on the left and play down that side of the hole. Some days you would see it on the right and favor right-center. Other days you might not even see it at all and assume it is smack dab behind the mound, in which you want to play to the far outsides of the fairway to get a clear shot. Failing that, you’d want to hit a running shot off one of the outsides of either V in order to work it around the mound. No matter what, the hole presents fun and unusual challenges and is a highlight even without the beauty and drama of the ocean.

*Left and right flags visible through the “V” slots but still half hidden due to the fallaway bowl that is the green.*

*Hole 2 from 200 yards in. This rendering shows the variety of shots that can be played off and through the fronting slopes.*

We followed up with a nice little naturally-sitting par 3 with some foreground dunes criss-crossing and framing the green. The green sat nicely in a low with medium contour and a strong back to front tilt, which set it apart from the previous fallaway green. The intimate setting of the hole had a very good feel that was different from the rest of the routing.

After that was one of my favorite holes: a simple yet highly strategic par 4 down into a valley where the road to the beach ran through. This design exercise was all about using what you have, and I intended to use this road, which was sandy and sharply walled in most places—effectively making it a very long narrow bunker—to my advantage. With a slight diagonal, it was a no brainer to place the green tight to it on the opposite side and force a crossing at some point. That crossing could come with an aggressive play off the tee, clearing the hazard or at least nuzzling up very close to it to get the better, longer angle down the green. Or it could come on the second shot from down the left on the safe-line, but that leaves a partially blind shot over the road to the green that is just about impossible to hold on the putting surface. This was effective, fun strategy just using a simple access way.

*Diagram of hole 4 showing the optional routes of play. The road must be crossed at some point. The question for the player is “when?”*

The 5th was a hole that in truth was probably not possible because during that week we were seeing it in a different light. A large majority of it sat in a seasonal floodplain where groundwater would breach the surface at times of heavier rain. It was completely dry though when we saw it, and what we saw was also a very interesting and strategic golf hole.

The tee shot played off a dune down into a broad, low lying flat. In the foreground, there was a medium sized dune to clear. In the distance, views of habitations. In the middle of the hole, a large, pesky mound that must be dealt with. That dune-mound acts like a center-line bunker, dictating play and strategy, especially as we placed the green halfway behind another dune mound further down the hole. This greenside mound isn’t too dissimilar from the hill guarding the 16th hole at Lundin Links, which is the inspiration for Charles Blair MacDonald’s “Leven” template. I knew little of that hole or the Leven template at that time, but I knew that this would be a brilliant spot for the green here. It would guard all play from the left side of the hole. Any shot that clears it will have a hard time holding the green and run on for quite a ways on the flat firm ground; any that lands short is likely to end up hung up in the shaggy grass of the dune. Tee shots that take the longer, narrower route out to the right of the centerline mound, however, will be met with an open view of the green and a chance to bump and run it on. It’s very much an inverse of the second hole at Pacific Dunes, except instead of bunkering it uses mound-y dunes as the guarding hazards. Again, this is effective, fun strategy with no artificiality or man’s imposition attached.

*A simple mound and well-placed green provide all the interest on the 5th hole.*

Hole 6 was where it really starts to get into that old time-y links territory. The tee sits in the middle of a vast, grazed-down flat area. You really could put it anywhere you wanted. As such, we didn’t place it until walking the entire hole and figuring out what everything was and where the green would be. What was certain either way was that the tee shot would be blind over a low lying ridge and play out to a generally flat field slowly rising upward toward the dune ridge at the edge of the beach. One problem awaits though, especially for the big hitter—a large, blind sandy blowout that resembled a slightly smaller version of the original Hell Bunker at the 14th at St Andrews. It was rugged and penalizing, and with that we decided that the green should lie directly beyond it at the toe of the beachside dunes. For most players, it would be unreachable, especially against the prevailing westerly wind, but for the aggressive hitter trying to get close (or being careless), finding it could ruin the hole. In the most severe winds, the bunker may actually come into play on the second shot, and that is where it may get the most interesting. Do you go left, right, or over it? It all depends on the circumstances, which in a nutshell is the beauty of links golf. Whereas the previous two holes have strategic quirk, this one has more of just the odd, “it is what it is” quirk you find at some old links, where there was no other good way to connect holes or alter the land to make it better. The weather, the seasonality, the turf, and your own play all provide the variety and interest, which can be different every time you play. And that’s what makes links golf, and holes like this odd one, so enduring.

From the 6th green, it was time to go say hi to the Ocean again. It was too obvious and easy to climb up the ridge and put the tee right on the edge of the bluff, leaving a 360 degree view with the white beach and bright blue, Caribbean-like water on one side and the machair and distant mountains on the other. It was brilliant and beautiful stuff.

This also happens to be the part of the round where my memory, and the routing itself, gets less clear. From this furthest point away from the clubhouse, we had a few options for how to get back there. We could turn back inland at a 45 degree angle and play toward a some dunes and a blowout, then either work our way back toward the beach and up to the clubhouse or just go back to the clubhouse. Or we could ride along the coast and the dune ridge there. Either way, a big stretch of pretty benign land had to be crossed.

Luckily, we still had the first part of the morning to figure it out before doing our walk throughs with Martin. For now, it was time to go in for supper.

Day 3

*The view away from the golf on the 7th tees isn’t too bad at all*

‘Twas another bonnie day out on the links upon waking, and I wanted to quickly get back out and figure out the rest of these holes before doing the walk through. Even though I can’t completely remember the final 3 holes in full detail, here’s what I think happened:

We made a par 3 for the 7th playing down and slightly away from the beach ridge. There was some interesting ground there for a green site but not much for a ways beyond, so this made sense. I can’t help but think that the 10th hole at North Berwick was in the back of my mind too, because spatially this felt exactly like that. We reach the farthest point on the property after crossing flatter ground, go up to the ridge to place a tee with a view of the sea, and play down to a par 3 at nearly the same angle from the beach as North Berwick 10. This green though is a bit more receptive than that one with a dune bank up the left and some smaller support on the right. A bump in the left ridge allows the green to go around it and have some truly tucked holes in the back left. In that way, it’s actually not too different from some William Watson greens we’ve worked on at Orinda and Diablo.

From there, we finally get a par 5. We set the tee behind the dune next to the green to hide it, but like number 6, there is plenty of elasticity and open ground to lengthen the hole or change the angle. What doesn’t change though is the finishing half of the hole, which plays right along the beach in a long, rumply sort of half pipe. To get into that half pipe though and have a view at the green requires an uneasy blind second shot over a ridge and into it. Add to that what is likely to be a strong left to right wind off the Ocean, and the shot is even more difficult. The payout for finding it is good though, and those 2nd shots that reach it will be rewarded with a view of the green and the option of keeping the ball on the ground and out of the wind, those running shots corralling in a friendly way off the sides of the flanking ridges as they tumble up to the bowl-like putting surface.

The final hole again gets a bit weird, as we kind of got stuck. I’m pretty sure it was a blind shot over some severe dunes and pits, one of which has the shell of an old burned car at the bottom of it. If you carried all that though, you ended up at a pretty friendly green in a bowl up near the clubhouse site. Really though, holes like these are in the spirit of links golf, especially that in the west of Scotland. Prestwick, Shiskine, and others all have odd connectors like these, and many of them are a lot of fun, creating that excitement to run up to the top of the hill and see where the shot ended up. This would be no different from that.

In truth, this section of the links near the “clubhouse” was always going to be tough to figure out. A lot of it is a higher plateau with extremely deep valleys. Golf doesn’t really “work’ for much of it, which is a bit frustrating since it is otherwise interesting compared to the broader flat areas. We are doing this like it’s 1890 though, so it stays as it is. And really, that’s probably all for the better. Grab your mid-iron, bash on, and pray to ye gowf gods!

———

*Our routing as laid over satellite imagery. The light blue lines indicate a less-advantageous alternate route.*

We did the walk throughs with Martin and eventually came to ours. He thought there was some interesting stuff but was also concerned about back to back short holes to open as well as overall length. I could see that point and thought of a few ways to remedy it, but I really liked the green sites and some of the strategy. I also was embracing the old school, golf-as-adventure spirit and just wanted there to be interesting shots and situations.

If I had a self criticism though, it would be that I don’t know if I maximized usage of the most dramatic dune areas or the beach frontage. Could there be more holes in those dunes, and did I venture out too far with 5 and 6? Could I have had some greens that had ocean views? Could I have done something interesting and quirky with the cemetery? What would I have done differently if I had known hole 5 would be unplayable for part of the year? I actually sought to remedy a few of these things with some free time later in the week and came up with a mostly different routing. Unfortunately though, both my notes and memories of that have been lost, only some barely-descript photos of unmarked links land giving me vague and frustrating clues as to what I was thinking. I guess that just means I have to go back there and figure it out.

I also still don’t love how the final hole ended up, and I think there is a good par 5 that could come in at a 90 degree angle to the same green site that we ended up with. You would end up losing the 8th though, which is a pretty interesting par 5 close to the ocean. This kind of push-and-pull is the fun though as well as the challenge of golf course routing. There are way more than 18 potential holes out there (or in this case, 9), and the best architects figure out how to parse out the best final combination that balances flow, experience, strategy, and overall quality. Sometimes that means sacrificing one great hole to elevate three other ones. Sometimes it means breaking convention, like Pacific Dunes’ back to back par 3s, to get the best overall quality. These decisions are all critical. So, was my routing the best it could be? Probably not. After all, it was my first time really doing it on the ground, and it was only over a day. With more time to walk the ground as well as the experience gained from 10 more years of studying and living golf, another crack at it would surely be better. That might just have to be a different post though for another day…

Day 3 will be continued in the next part of the series—Askernish After 10 Years: The Golf Course.

Below: images the author, Martin, and the group walking the land and finding golf holes.

Askernish After 10 Years: Part 1--The Journey / April 14, 2020 by Brett Hochstein

hochstein-design-askernish-journey-scottish-flag-header.jpg

This week is the 10 year anniversary of a life-changing trip to a golf course far away and lost in time: Askernish. To reflect upon it as well as occupy my time during this pandemic crisis, I am rolling out a multi-part series that explores my thoughts, emotions, and lessons learned from a legendary week on the links. I will dive into the learning activities we took part in, including doing a 9 hole routing over virgin linksland and shoring up a natural bunker blowout—both in the style and limitations of Old Tom Morris’s time. I will also get into what a place like this really means for golf and the lessons that we can learn from it. This is Part 1 though—the journey of getting there, both that from that first day and the year preceding it.

Prelude

At some point during one of my autumn class lectures at Fife’s Elmwood College, one of the instructors brought up a trip to Askernish for the following spring. It was to be sponsored by the R&A and offered to their many scholar students, complete with a variety of teaching seminars and last a full week. I missed some of those initial details, hung up on and mentally salivating over the word “Askernish.” That was all I had needed to hear.

About 6 months earlier, in the heat of my post-college purgatory living in my parents house (this was 2009, after all), I came across a New Yorker article about a “Ghost Course” out on the far western isles of Scotland. Old Tom Morris was said to have originally been there and designed it, but the version of the golf course at that time seemed to be far from anything resembling an Old Tom layout. For one, there were 9 holes when the original had been 18. Secondly, it played almost entirely along a flatter section of the Machair (the vast, shared grazing grounds utilized by the island’s few inhabitants) that also doubled for landing airplanes, avoiding some obvious dramatic dunes right nearby. No way Old Tom would have stayed out of those.

There was a lingering curiosity though about the legend of the old course. Eventually the curiosity turned to action as a team of devoted locals, links turf specialist Gordon Irvine, and golf architect Martin Ebert set out to find the “original” course. The results of those efforts are the spectacular, rumbling, tumbling golf adventure that still exists today. Furthermore, no ground was altered to create the course, and maintenance was completely minimal and heavily reliant on grazing, meaning the turf was also like that of Old Tom’s time. This story completely captivated me, and I immediately starting dreaming about visiting Askernish, wondering when and how I would ever get there.

Rewinding back another 8 months, I get an email while working on a drawing in the upstairs office of architect Mike DeVries’s house. It was not a good one. The director of the Golf Course Architecture masters program at Edinburgh College of Art was reaching out to inform me that funding had been cut by the school and that the program was to be discontinued immediately. Just like that, my dream of getting to Scotland that fall was crushed. I was supposed to be leaving in 8 weeks.

Back to April and the Askernish article. I had stuck with the pursuit of getting to Scotland, my most recent gambit trying to get a caddie license at St Andrews. After a few months of being told it should be no problem by the caddie master, the Links Trust changed course and decided they no longer wanted to allow internationals a license and instead keep them for locals (again, this was 2009—economic struggles, etc., etc.). Strike 3—a failed Dreer proposal, canceled grad program, and rejected caddie license—seemed to indicate I was done. Askernish, and the rest of the links, would have to remain but a dream, and my career in the golf design business would continue on long-term hold, if it ever took.

Then I came across a small school and turf program near St Andrews—Elmwood College. The program was completely hands-on and practical, even having a focus and coursework on golf architecture (because these are the things the Scots find important—there is little separation between proper design and proper turf). It may not have had the prestige or pedigree of Edinburgh College of Art nor the cultural experience of living in the capital, but in many ways it was a better fit for what I wanted to do. Perhaps most importantly though, they were happy to have me, and they weren’t going anywhere. I was on my way, and as I would find out a few weeks into the school year, Askernish was no longer but a dream.

———

Day 1

Early Sunday morning arrived as did the van that was to take us on our journey from Central Fife to what would seem like the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Inside were the other students from Elmwood as well as the lads from the English equivalent, Myerscough College. Captaining the ship was Dr. Paul Miller—professor, agronomist, historian, Scotsman, and avid links-lover. Paul is one of those people with a passion for many things in life, someone I always will try to block out a chunk of time for to wax on anything golf, sports, soil, history or whatever-related. It was going to be an asset to have him leading us along the way.

It was also going to be fun having the other guys on the trip. There were two very different Englishmen (a Londoner and a Northerner from Yorkshire), a South African, a Scotsman, and two Americans—myself and a Mainer who had defected to Scotland a couple years prior. We had all met up at the Elmwood Golf Course the night before to start the week early, and it was easy to tell in those introductory moments that there was going to be a lot of fun with plenty of good back-and-forth.

The sun shone brightly that day as we wound our way northwest. The early spring greenery of the Central Lowlands was rich and verdant, the brown-maroon of the heather-covered hills of the Highlands golden, the water of the many lochs a very rich and reflective blue. I feel I remember The Beatles being the main, most agreeable choice of music in the van, and it was enough to take me away at times from the Neko Case refrains serenading me on my own headphones, her long howling voice the perfect anthem for the vast, solitary places we were going.

Our first stop would be at the edge of the mainland in Oban to board the car ferry, stretch our legs, and get some lunch. The boat ride that awaited us would be a long one—almost 7 hours in total. As such, we loaded up on some provisions for it. It being a warm, calm, sunny day that would likely be enjoyable out on the ship’s top deck, I went for some crackers, salami, aged Scottish cheddar, and a budgetary bottle of red wine. We gathered out there for much of the ride, especially the first section through the Sound of Mull, one of those long, almost fjord-like waterways that are oh-so-common to Western Scotland. The pace of the boat seemed slow as it churned through the unusually calm, almost glassy water. On a day like this, with the air crystal clear and sky deeply blue, a slow pace was perfectly fine.

The Sound snakes its way out to the Sea of the Hebrides, its surrounding landscapes both near and far being highly varied. In the far distance toward the main land, snow still dotted the peaks of the Highlands and Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak. Arable slopes directly along the water eventually gave way to forests of Scots pine which eventually gave way to more rugged, rocky, and barren lands even further out.

As you exit the Sound and head into the Sea, you realize just how far you are going and how crazy this all seems. The rocky hills of heather and gorse stand to your sides as you look ahead and see nothing but water, that nothingness being exactly where the boat was heading. Had it been a rough weather day, this moment in time would seem daunting. As it was, onward we sail.

Eventually the distant isles of the Outer Hebrides came into view, jagged mountains sticking straight out of the ocean water. It was an unbelievable scene made more unbelievable as we slowly, surely approached them, those mountains growing at an exceeding rate. The sun was starting to lower as we approached the Isle of Barra, a stop along the way to our final destination of South Uist. Across the sky were streaks of smoke from heather and peat fires on the island, and at one point the sun hid perfectly behind them, glowing the deepest of reds imaginable.

Approaching the island and the village of Castlebay was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. With the lighting cool blue yet glowing, the boat slowly entered the nearly still harbor, the reflective water doubling the Gaelic scene. The smell of peat filled the air as the smoke rose gently from the hills like a mist. There was an incredible quiet as the village slid into view, the hum of the boat and light splashing of water at its sides providing the only sounds. Cottage houses organically-spaced up the sides of the grassy, rocky slopes dotted the barren land. An old stone church stood upon high, looking down ominously over your sins. A castle—an honest-to-God old stone castle—sat right in the middle of the water in the harbor.

I have never been “in” a movie, as in actually living the fictitious scene of a movie. None of us have. It’s impossible. But this felt exactly like that—being transported to both a world away and a time of the distant past. It was powerfully haunting and wonderful.

*The movie-set of Castlebay: approaching Barra was like entering not just a different place but a different time.*

———

After departing Barra, it would be another hour or so up to Lochboisdale, the port of South Uist and a short drive from Askernish. We were treated to a vivid sunset behind the silhouette of Barra. The long northern twilight period eventually gave way to total darkness as we docked at Lochboisdale and packed back into the van for the short drive to Askernish, the first time the wheels had turned in hours but certainly not the first time they moved.

The dark (and I mean dark) drive to the course clubhouse was mixed with both travel-fatigue and excitement. After all, it was close to 11 PM on a Sunday and hour who-knows-what of travel. So, why would we go to the clubhouse then at 11 PM on a Sunday and not just call it a night to rest up for the week? That’s because final round of The Masters was on live, and no one wanted to miss that. The darkness and peace quickly became brightness and cheery banter as we walked into the front door, meeting a number of club members, including Ralph Thompson, the larger than life caretaker of the course and reason we were really here. It was Ralph, after all, who spearheaded the whole campaign to restore the Old Tom course and whose energy was driving its newly re-found legend.

We were poured pints from the “bar” and positioned ourselves accordingly in the all-purpose room to just catch the leaders rounding Amen Corner. As the holes played on, two men started to distance themselves—Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson. The room slowly and naturally started to divide, us two Americans sloughing off into the corner as we cheered for our countryman against the home (UK) favorite Westwood. This was properly noticed and called out, and a good laugh was had by all. A good time was had by all as well, even with Mickelson prevailing.

We headed back over to our lodgings—a house about a par 5’s distance down the trail from the clubhouse. As us young kids had a lot of that dumb youthful energy and were still abuzz from the Masters finish, we decided to hang a little more at the house and have a night cap. At one point, we stood outside in the darkness to chat, only a faint tungsten light somewhere in the distance and the stars providing the light. Or so it seemed. As my eyes started to adjust, I noticed a broad glow out toward the northwest sky. It wasn’t just that other light. This glow seemed to have greens, reds, and maybe even a little blue. It turned out that our youthful idiocy and future exhaustion were rewarded with Aurora Borealis, the “Northern Lights.” I got my camera, set it up on the sturdiest thing I could find, and took a few long exposures to make sure I wasn’t crazy. A couple somehow turned out ok.

*The rewards of future sleep deprivation*

I’m not sure how much more could have possibly happened in day one, but I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for the rest of the week. This was already incredible, and we had yet to even see the golf course.

It was time to finally get some rest. We would need it for a week that would contain very little of it.

Look for Part 2 in the coming days, which will get into the first two days on the links and we imagining all sorts of golf holes that are literally just sitting there waiting to be mowed and played. In the meantime, click on the gallery images below to better see the magical places described above

The Best Of: 2019 / February 26, 2020 by Brett Hochstein

*The reward for a long hot day in the dust and mud was always a golden view of Mt. Diablo*

For those familiar with these annual write-ups, this year’s version may seem a little bit boring compared to years past. There were no exploits overseas, work or otherwise. Airplane trips can be counted on a single hand. And all work, present and prospective, was located within driving distance, including our main project of the year—shaping on a major Todd Eckenrode renovation at Diablo Country Club, just a nice 20 minute ride from home.

That isn’t to say that the year was boring though, especially from our perspective. There’s the aforementioned Diablo project, which saw us getting back into the dozer to rebuild and reimagine greens—the most enjoyable and creatively satisfying type of work. There’s our continued progress in the pursuit of project work on our own. There’s an amazing trip to Chicago and Wisconsin to explore architectural styles that we have yet to experience in person. And on a personal level, there’s the new family that we started this November with the birth of our baby girl.

It’s been a simpler year for us, but thrilling nonetheless.

THE WORK

Diablo Country Club was our only major shaping project this year, but it kept us occupied full time from April all the way until mid-October. The project, led by SoCal-based architect Todd Eckenrode, was a significant one with complete re-grassing of the whole property, a new irrigation system, re-shaped greens (of various impact/significance), re-shaped and shifted bunkers, the restoration/addition of natural creek ways, and the addition of lower maintenance “native” areas. The project was driven not just by a desire to improve the playing interest of the course and restore it to its historic pedigree, it was also implemented to sensibly move forward into the future by switching to much more environmentally and drought friendly turf grasses that should see a significant reduction of water and other inputs.

The course itself is one of the most history-rich in the region, having been originally designed by Jack Neville in 1914 and expanded by William Watson later in 1920. This is the only known property where both Neville and Watson worked, which made it an especially exciting project to be a part of.

The course is still in the late grow-in stages, so coverage at this time is limited. More to come as things mature and the course re-opens.

Favorite Features of the Field

*Hole 11 at Diablo just after sodding. The course plays over a gentle, pastoral landscape that is seemingly uncommon for golf in California, where the hills are either heaving or don’t exist at all.*

1. Hole 2 Main Green, Diablo Ironically, this might be the hole that is least different from the previous version to the new one. We just simply enhanced what was there, bringing the green out to the edge of the creek-way and giving the bunkers more teeth and character. What was there was dead simple—a green that falls away to the back and right and is guarded by bunkers on the left and the back, meaning you want to bounce a shot softly in from the left near the bunker to keep from rolling off into the back bunker or creek on the right. It is subtle and simple strategy that was worth preserving.

2. Hole 16, Diablo The spot where it all came to a close. This par 3 is special, as it plays inside of giant eucalyptus trees that marked the border of a former horse-racing track. We ended up re-introducing some historic elements based off of that, including some front cross bunkers and a Watson bump that eats into the left side of the green, which ended up being one of the more interesting and contoured ones of the project.

3. Hole 15, Diablo The spot where it all began. I’ve always liked this up-and-over hole that finishes at the historic halfway house with a view of the mountain to the left. The green really didn’t have much to it, however. Instead of a total blow up though, we focused on a couple of small moves, shifting the bunkers to open the left, adding front left contours that can help or hurt you, and angling the green a bit more to the right—all while keeping the low-profile feel of the complex, which sits in a big low flat spot on the property. It’s an example of doing just enough to make something more interesting.

4. Hole 18, Diablo This is probably my favorite trees-down-the-middle hole anywhere, so it was an honor to get to work on it. As such, not much was changed except for emboldening/tweaking the existing green and fairway bunkers and moving the greenside bunkers back out to a historic location, which opens the front entry for a running approach on this short par 5. Should be an even more fun finish now.

5 (t). Hole 11, Diablo The orientation of this hole sets it up for beautiful views to a central oak knoll and the distant ridgeline. The beginning of the fairway to the bend might be my favorite spot on the property, and I like it even more after building a pair of bunkers that are an homage to a set of four that used to exist historically. The green, which sits up on a hill top, received a few tweaks, enhancing a dip to the left behind a bunker, losing the right bunker and adding one short left, and redoing the back mounding to something more Watson-like while making the long shot into the green more visually intimidating.

5 (t). Hole 7 Alternate Green and Creekway, Diablo As part of an alternative routing for when a temporary range is open, this is an intimidating little short par 3 that sticks out into the newly enhanced creek way. I really like the way that we were able to fit it into the space and make it feel like a natural landform, and playing it will be a true test of bravery. Take on the trouble, or bail out into the acres of the 7th fairway on the right.

H.M. Hole 1 Bunker Edging - Cal Club, Hole 2 Alternate Green - Diablo, Hole 6 - Diablo, Hole 8 - Diablo

Above: before and after of re-edging a large fairway bunker at Cal Club. It is amazing how much the grass grows down and thickens over time, even when actively trying to keep it lean.

**Favorite Features off the Field**

1. iSeekGolf Podcast (https://podcast.iseekgolf.com/106)

2. Some thoughts on the trends of bunker styles

3. The continued pursuit of solo work

Best Work Experiences

1. Working the 11th green at Diablo, which sits on a nice precipice with views all over the back nine.

2. Beginning work on the 15th green at Diablo amidst the greenery and lingering drizzle of early Spring, knowing that the hot dry heat was only a few short weeks away. Mt. Diablo many mornings would remind me of the Scottish hillsides/mountains during summer.

3. Feeling like I’m back to working a European winter on the 8th hole with surprise rains in mid May. Yes I was enjoying working in the rain. Just work a couple summers in California sun and clay (dust), and you will understand where I am coming from.

4. The final float on the 16th green at Diablo. Time to call everyone over and share a Pliny!

5. The instant satisfaction of bunker edging at Cal Club and Orinda. The achy joints might get old, but seeing a refreshed edge never does.

THE GOLF

*Lawsonia is bold and beautiful. It’s undoubtedly engineered but still naturally fits, which is something I am still wrapping my head around.*

I don’t play much golf these days, but when I do, the quality—whether it be the course or the people I am with—certainly makes up for the lack of quantity. And really, I’d prefer it to be that way. I enjoy walking and learning from a great design as much as I do just playing, and the inspirational benefits from that are great, especially when seeing something new, as I did a few times this year.

This year’s big study trip took us to Wisconsin, where the focus would be to see the new Sand Valley courses as well as introduce myself to some different architectural styles that I have long wanted to see—the bold, engineered designs of William Langford and Seth Raynor. As I looked into flights to the Badger State, I found it just made more sense to fly SFO to O’Hare, and at that point it was too hard not to add visits to Chicago’s great courses in Chicago Golf Club and Shoreacres. I ended up having to cut the trip a day short and miss Shoreacres, unfortunately, but overall it was a successful and fun journey that opened my eyes further to the possibilities in golf course design.

Best New-to-me Golf Courses Seen in 2019

*Sand Valley is the landscape and type of golf I always imagined for Northern Michigan, but Wisconsin beat us to it.*

Let's start by noting that this list is just a casual indicator of how good I feel a course is. It is a combination of how I think it holds up for a range of players as well as just how much I personally like it.

Really, this should just be fun and give a general idea of what I like in a golf course.

1. Chicago Golf Club - Wheaton, IL; Seth Raynor redesign from Charles Blair MacDonald original [9] My first thought when glancing over the beautiful, simple, open, pastoral landscape of the Chicago Golf Club was “why don’t more golf courses look like this?” I mean, seriously. Half close your eyes, and it looks just like some of the nearby abandoned farm meadows with varied color and texture on the ground, a few groves of mature specimen trees, and golf holes that do not impose upon the gentle, broad tilts of the land. Almost any other course of the last 80 years would have lined every hole with trees and cut back the native grasses and flowers, and that would be a shame. But that is just the course’s landscape.

The golf is also excellent with a history even more impressive. Seth Raynor re-designed Charles Blair MacDonald’s original course with his blessing, routing the holes with more variety of directionality and tailoring his typical template holes and green complexes to the land. The tilts of the greens are impressive, especially the Redan 7th (really incredible to see in person), but the variety and micro contouring really stood out to me as well. A hole like the 9th is a simpler one with a square green, but two little ridges run parallel down the length of the green, creating a couple of separate troughs that demand extra accuracy on the approach if you are to make birdie or par. Other greens that stood out like this were 5 (Leven), 15 (Ginger Ale), and 16 (Raynor’s Prize).

I’ve long argued that one does not need a “spectacular” piece of ground to have great golf architecture. Respect the land for what it is and make shrewd, well-thought out design moves, and the golf as well as the experience can be great. Chicago Golf Club is an excellent example of this.

2. Lawsonia (Links) - Green Lake, WI; William Langford and Theodore Moreau [8] Everything said about Lawsonia is true, and it does have to be seen to be believed. The scale is truly incredible, and the greens are full of interesting internal contours that reward playing to the proper section of the green. I got very giddy when I noticed the lower back shelf on the 5th hole with steep dropoffs for the overly greedy play. I just about lost it when I saw the 6th green, which falls off to both the back and left, again with (literally) steep penalties for the over-aggressive. And then I saw the 7th green…

*I now get why the 7th green is often photographed*

The back nine gets all the love and photographs, but this stretch on the front nine is as good as any on the course. Speaking of the back nine, it really is a special place to be and play, especially as the sun starts to lower in the west and the shadows of Langford’s bold shaping start to grow and darken. I can’t believe what these guys were able to build in the 1920s with those awkward steam shovels. Impressive.

3 (t). Sand Valley - Nekoosa, WI; Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw [8] Growing up in Michigan, I was well aware of the sandy nature of “Up North,” that vacationland full of lakes and golf courses. As I grew older and my knowledge and exposure of good golf design expanded, I began to realize how drastically far from its potential the region is. Pine Valley type courses, at least in aesthetic style, could abound. Alas, it took Mike Keiser and a remote pine plantation to finally take advantage of this sandy type of landscape, though over in our neighbor state across Lake Michigan instead. And it really is stunning and beautiful as the spacious routing takes you on a peaceful journey across the land. The golf itself is really fun too, with all sorts of different ground game shots and approaches.

3 (t). Mammoth Dunes - Nekoosa, WI; David McLay Kidd [8] I will admit being somewhat skeptical of Mammoth Dunes prior to playing it, concerned that the massive width and greens may be a stretch too far and lead to an almost dull affair. Not so. For one, if you are erratic off the tee, as I was at the end of a long week, there is no guarantee you will find the short grass. Looking further though, I could often see that there were much smaller windows along or up against a sandy expanse or centerline bunker that you would want to try and hit if you were to have a markedly better angle of attack into the green. This effect is immediately felt on the second hole, which has a green guarded by a large short grass hill on the front left of the green that is certain to be Ejection City for anyone coming in from that side of the hole. Off the tee, you want to do one of two things to open up your angle: hit it deep and skirt the centerline bunker along its right side, or play way out right, which is a longer distance carry the more right you go. I found these conundrums present throughout the round.

On top of that, there were a number of very fun greens and approaches where the aiming line was well away from the hole. The routing was also brilliant in the way it took you to and around a large oak-laden ridge at the far end of the course, a natural feature not experienced on the other course. I also quite liked the emotional experience of walking the fairways on the holes nearest the clubhouse, particularly 17 and 18. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so small on a golf course.

We probably shouldn’t be building every new golf course on such a large scale, but in the sake of macro-variety, it is good to have a few like this to experience and enjoy. I’m sure I will like the small-scale Doak counter to this just as much for that very reason.

5. Blue Mound - Wauwatosa, WI; Seth Raynor [7] The only other Raynor I had seen to this point was Chicago Golf Club the day before, but still I felt like this was a good example of his work. The double-plateau 2nd is actually bolder than at Chicago, and the Redan and Punchbowls are both just as strong and bold. I also liked how the routing begins on the flatter section nearer the urban setting but slowly works its way into a beautiful natural section laden with hills, forest, and water. Bruce Hepner has done a great job with a long term restoration of the course, and new superintendent Alex Beson-Crone is working diligently already to increase the firmness of the conditions which will only make Raynor’s well-thought slopes matter that much more. Excited to see this course continue to progress into the future.

6. The Sand Box - Nekoosa, WI; Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw with Jim Craig [7] This has to be one of the most fun settings in all of golf, especially toward the end of the day. Groups as big as 12 go around this wild 17 hole par 3 course, typically wielding an adult beverage of choice though sometimes not wielding shoes. You will hear music playing from portable speakers, plenty of laughs, and some mighty roars when someone drops a bomb for a birdie. This faster paced party atmosphere is the perfect complement to a round on one of the big courses, which is a slow and peaceful stroll across the land.

The golf itself is also really fun and quite varied too, with miniature-sized takes on such famous holes like the Road Hole, Lion’s Mouth, and Alps. Don’t miss the Sand Box.

7. Milwaukee Country Club - Milwaukee, WI; C.H. Alison [7] I often like to look at Google Earth before visiting a place to get a feel for what I might see. This can be misleading sometimes though, and that is certainly the case at Milwaukee, which is on a much grander scale than can be seen from 10,000 feet. Wide corridors, large flashed bunkers, and ample short grass just make the place feel big, especially for still being a tree-lined parkland course. The interaction with the Milwaukee River on the back nine is another highlight, as I can’t recall too many other golf holes that play over and along a river of such size and flow.

*The pleasing grand scale and tight turf of Milwaukee CC*

8. Eagle Springs - Eagle, WI; A.G. Spaulding [6] Since Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg first started posting photos of this course, I really wanted to see it. Finally getting there in person did not disappoint, and the fun starts right away on the first hole, which has one of the coolest, boldest, and natural settings for a green that I have ever seen. It continues with what might be the most extreme volcano hole anywhere. I also liked the understated simplicity and gentle tilt away on greens like the 3rd and 5th as well as the mental respite from the holes that precede and follow them. The 4th, which sits hidden down to the left and has more extreme trouble further left, is another highlight. The remaining greens all have a very classic, old feel to them and present different challenges. I seriously loved this golf course and wish I had something like this near my house. It would certainly get me to play more.

9. Spring Valley (partial tour) - Salem, WI; William Langford and Theodore Moreau [5] I was losing daylight on a rainy evening, so I only got a look at a few holes. I was able to get the general idea though—lots of Langford and Moreau greens and landforms much in the same style of Lawsonia, though scaled down a bit. More discussed in the “Restoration Opportunities” section.

10. San Diego Country Club - Chula Vista, CA; William Watson, with revisions by Billy Bell [5] The land on this course is very “golf scale” with a series of smaller up and down hills and valleys. Whereas most of California courses are on big heaving slopes or flatlands, this “in between” land reminds me a lot of the glacial forms you’d see at courses where I grew in Michigan—places like Oakland Hills, Franklin Hills, and Orchard Lake. Throw in the Watson and Bell heritage, and there is a lot of potential here.

H.M. Goat Hill Park - Oceanside, CA: Ludwig Keehn; Downers Grove - Downers Grove, IL: Charles Blair MacDonald, with numerous revisions over the years

Best Greens: Design, Interest, and Sensibility

*The clean horizon Double Plateau at Blue Mound gives a real sense of unease about the potential trouble behind.*

1. Chicago Golf Club

2. The Sand Box

Aside: gallery of the fun variety of greens at the Sand Box. Also, no shoes required.

3. Lawsonia

4. Mammoth Dunes

5 (t). Sand Valley

5 (t). Blue Mound

H.M. Eagle Springs, Spring Valley

Above: The amazingly creative, diverse, and wildly fun greens at old Eagle Springs

Best Bunkering: Playing Importance, Aesthetics, and Context

Sand, bunker, and native texture blend beautifully at Sand Valley. That sandy native is particularly beautiful and diverse in color and texture, and it is remarkably playable as I never lost a ball. I’ve never seen it where all those ideals were ach… — Sand, bunker, and native texture blend beautifully at Sand Valley. That sandy native is particularly beautiful and diverse in color and texture, and it is remarkably playable as I never lost a ball. I’ve never seen it where all those ideals were achieved so well.

1. Sand Valley Sand Valley is what I always thought golf in Northern Michigan ought to be. Wild, sandy, natural. I particularly liked the way sandy expanses and harder edged bunkers blend with the native plants and texture, which is also the best version of “native” that I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It’s colorful with varied texture and density, and I never lost a ball once in it, despite many attempts to do so.

2. Mammoth Dunes The aesthetics of the bunkers and sand areas on Mammoth don’t have quite the same natural appeal to me (less blending, more formally defined, a lot of repeated islands), but I thought they often impacted play in a brilliant way. Known for its extreme width, I often found myself wanting to cheat closely alongside the sand (down the right on number 2) or place a shot as close to a crossing hazard as possible (par 5s 7 and 11). There are advantages to be had out there, and I can see why David Kidd can get a bit testy when people bring up the course’s width for the thousandth time.

3. Chicago Golf Club Chicago’s trench bunkers are remarkably close to original. Their depth exacts a true penalty, especially at the greens, where they are extremely tight to the surface. A very light-handed restoration is forthcoming to reclaim some size and depth, and that along with some fairway re-widening should reclaim a lot of strategy in fairway bunkering. Those simple moves could possibly be enough to bump this set to the top of the list.

4. Lawsonia Obviously big and bold, but also often set at angles where an advantage can be gained by taking on the longer side. I found there is a beauty in their simplicity as well, and many follow the simple aesthetic principles of having a high side falling to a low side. Nevermind that you often can see little or no sand—the landforms give no doubt that you are looking at a bunker*.

*Except for the ones that have been converted to a grassy bottom over the years, presumably for pace of play. The land wall is often so big though that the playing effect is often the same whether there is sand in it or not.

5. The Sand Box Classic Coore & Crenshaw bunkering at a smaller scale, and they play well into the shot risks and strategy involved with the greens. Also fun to try and recover from with a putter. More on that later…

H.M. Blue Mound, Milwaukee, San Diego

*Milwaukee has surprisingly large scale, which is well-exemplified by this large fairway bunker that perfectly guards the open angle into the green.*

Best Routings

1. Sand Valley

2. Mammoth Dunes

3. Chicago

4. Milwaukee

5. Blue Mound

H.M. Lawsonia, Sand Box, Eagle Springs

Champions of Fast and Firm--Best Turf + Conditions

*Indeed it is with conditions like these*

1(t). Sand Valley I had worked for Rob Duhm when he was an assistant at Kingsley Club and I a summer intern, so I knew that the fine fescue turf at Sand Valley was probably going to be pretty good. Even with lofty expectations, the playing conditions were better than I could have imagined. Despite some rain that morning and the course being more “lush” than normal heading into winter, a putter or a bump and run was always an available option. Also, when a ball would land on the green or approaches, the ground offered that most delightful of golfing sounds, the “thud.” Fine fescue is simply the best, especially when you have someone who knows how to manage it and resist the urge to add water and inputs.

1(t). Mammoth Dunes See above

3. Chicago Scott Bordner had the fairways very tight and firm, and this was despite a relative wet period. I can only imagine what it really gets like when drier. Also, it was great to see the greens literally maxed out to the very edge of their pads. The club is working on a plan to restore fairway widths, which will be very exciting to see as it adds variety and strategy to angles of approach.

4. Sand Box See above, but also special shoutout to their efforts to manage against ball mark damage on the small surfaces

5(t). Milwaukee As mentioned, there is very tight bent grass everywhere, which not only makes the design play much more interestingly, it also makes for great presentation, especially around the beautiful old building architecture of the clubhouse.

5(t). Lawsonia The emphasis on the ground game is also present at Lawsonia, where Mike Lyons does a great job of keeping the ground fast and firm. They’ve also done a great job of bringing the greens out to the edge of their landforms, which allows for the widest variety of hole locations and some especially scary ones up next to large drop-offs. Special shout-out as well to the crew tasked with fly mowing the huge Langford banks using a rope system. That is not easy work and often thankless, but I’m here right now to say thanks to them and their efforts so that we can enjoy such bold architecture without it getting overly penal.

H.M. Blue Mound As mentioned before, this already improved Raynor is about to get better with the efforts of new superintendent Alex Beson-Crone, who on the day I visited was busy getting hands-on helping the crew to pull plugs and spread sand on the approaches and surrounds. That is dedication and someone who is truly setting out to do what they say.

Best Playing/Walking Experiences

*Quite the scene for a putter-only showdown*

1. Putter-only match with Brian Schneider as the sun sets at the Sand Box

2. Lawsonia! Was lucky enough to play alone in a nice gap of play on a busy day. Allowed for time to look at angles and take photos as well as save some embarrassment from all the gawking and giddiness

3. Walking around Chicago Golf Club for the better part of a day. Preceding it was a wonderful history lesson from club historian John Moran.

4. A round with Joe Hancock, Sean Tully, and Kevin Hauschel at Pasatiempo. Not sure if the banter or architecture was better.

5. My rounds at Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes that were with a good group of guys from Michigan, of all places

6. Running into Andy Johnson on a beautiful evening walk around Milwaukee CC, talking architecture and taking photos

7. First time playing a Raynor at Blue Mound

*Just a couple of photo geeks (Patrick Koenig and Ben Peters) doing their thing*

8. Solitary walk in a drizzle around the incredible Eagle Springs—solitary as in I didn’t see a single other person the entire 9 holes, which I found quite peaceful

9. Officially getting in on Patrick Koenig’s RGV tour at Orinda along with “The Golf Hawk” Ben Peters

10. The best superintendent post-meeting golf yet at Claremont. Josh Clevenger pulled out all the stops with beer on tap and post-round hors deuvres. Also, the golf at funky old Claremont is always good.

H.M. One of the best up-and-downs I’ve ever had, played around a bunker on the 15th at Sand Valley. Inspired by the Road Hole Bunker, I pulled out my putter as one of the caddies proclaimed “bold move, Cotton.” Luckily it worked out, but it was way too fun not to try.

Cool Curiosities, Awesome Oddities: The Most Enjoyable Unusual Features

1. The many old landforms from the original course scattered around Chicago Golf Club. These make me really curious to see what C.B. MacDonald’s original course of parallel out-and-back holes, which were inspired by the Old Course, looked like.

*This old ruin is not only cool to incorporate, it also is perfectly located to give pause for those pondering a long running shot into the green.*

2. Gigantic falloffs around the greens at Lawsonia. Unbelievably large. Somehow constructed in the 1920s.

3. Crossing the Milwaukee River at Milwaukee CC. The course gets awfully close to a fairly major river. Seems like that would be hard to pull off these days!

4. Basement Bunker at Mammoth Dunes I don’t know the backstory on this or how they found it, but it’s pretty cool and right in play.

5. Stables and barracks on the 3rd hole at Lawsonia Cool building architecture to complement the cool golf architecture

H.M. Decorous bathroom on 8th hole at Milwaukee CC

Best Restoration Opportunities

Because I can never just relax and play golf...

1. Spring Valley This one is too easy. All the Langford greens and landforms from the bunkers are still there. The greens just need expanding, the bunkers getting sand, and trees removed to restore playing corridors and vistas. Easy.

2. San Diego CC While the landforms are great, it’s obvious things have evolved over time with the greens and bunkers. Also, there are way too many trees throughout the course, most of them smaller and younger in age too.

3. Downers Grove Only number 3 because it is impossible to completely restore. You could certainly do some of it and then turn the rest into C.B. MacDonald’s original style, drawing inspiration from some of the old landforms still present at Chicago Golf. This would be serious fun to play around with.

THE EVERYTHING ELSE

Not surprisingly, this is especially light this year. Our main project was at home, and our only trips away were to the Golf Industry Show in San Diego and the study trip to Wisconsin/Chicago. There were some big personal highlights, though…

Favorite Cities

1. Madison, WI The state capital has a perfect mix of size, culture, and college energy. Also, it sits between two lakes, which offer beauty and year round recreation whether water or ice.

2. San Diego, CA Tons of bars and restaurants in close quarters, a great ballpark right downtown, awesome craft brews, and even some old brick architecture, rare in California.

3. Walnut Creek, CA Home!

Favorite food by Place

Above: Wisconsin.

Wisconsin - Fresh cheese curds from the state capital market. Broiled lake perch from Adam’s Rib in Green Lake.

San Diego - Fish tacos, obviously

Walnut Creek - Home cookin’!

Favorite Sights Seen

*Not the result I was hoping for (or close to it), but still a great experience. Definitely recommend sitting upper deck midfield—view of the game is incredible*

1. Camp Randall Stadium and the Badger tailgate scene. Madison, WI Might be the best gameday experience in the Big Ten, and I say that after witnessing my team get crushed.

2. Ship Rock, near Sand Valley. Wisconsin. A bizarre rock formation that literally sticks up out of nowhere. I had to double back in the car to check it out further.

3. Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet. DeForest, WI. A cheese lover’s dream store. Went with the beer cheese curds. Did not disappoint.

MUSIC

Anyone in this business who spends a lot of time in a machine out in the field knows how valuable a companion the art of music is. It is easy as well to draw parallels between the two, a great golf course acting as a great album with the component pieces—the holes and songs—standing individually while contributing to the work as a whole.

I still find myself listening to podcasts more these days, but there was some decent stuff put forth this year, including that by a few regular favorites and a return from an old one.

Best Albums

1. How to Leave Town - Car Seat Headrest I tend to gravitate to Will Toledo’s inner musings whenever I go back to the midwest, and especially so when I have longer drives through the countryside. I admittedly start with the second track on this album, but it is the best one and followed up by another very good one. Will packs in a lot of sounds and types of musical structure not just within his albums but also individual songs. You probably won’t “get it” on the first listen or two or if not in the right mindset, but after it starts to grow on you, it will continue to grow. This is probably my second favorite album of his now only after Teens of Denial.

2. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights - The New Pornographers The New Pornos keep with their brighter, more colorful, and more spacious sound that they began with on Brill Bruisers, though the songs on this album don’t “hook” you as strongly as the previous two albums. I still liked it a lot though, and fast paced dreamy sounding songs like “One Kind of Solomon” would perfectly complement the colorful sky during a sunset drive along the Wisconsin countryside.

3. New Songs for Old Problems (EP) - Middle Kids If this were a full length album, it could have competed for top billing. Middle Kids follow up well on their debut album Lost Friends, which was my personal album of the year one year ago.

4. Help Us Stranger - The Raconteurs So good to have The Raconteurs back, who originally debuted way back when I was a turf intern at Kingsley Club in the summer of 2006. The opening track kicks you right in the face and gets me personally a bit more excited with its references to both California and Detroit, the two places I’ve called home in life. The rest of it is solid rock and roll, which we just do not have enough of in this world anymore.

5. Gallipoli - Beirut Normally I reserve Beirut albums for stints in Europe, but this came out just after our trip to Spain last year. As fall/winter finally arrived in California in late November, I found myself getting back into this album as the scenery of the countryside reminded me of that Spain trip a year prior. I didn’t listen to this much while doing actual golf work, but its spacious, beautiful sound is worthy of a spot in the top 5.

6. The Lamb - Lala Lala I really like the edgy, dreamy, reverb-laden sound of this album and am looking forward to seeing what else she puts out in the future.

7. Twin Fantasy - Car Seat Headrest Yep, two Car Seat Headrest albums in one list. Will’s most recent album didn’t connect with me like How to Leave Town, but it is still really good.

8. Descended Like Vultures - Rogue Wave. No Rogue Wave album is as good as Asleep at Heaven’s Gate, but this preceding album has some of that sound and feel from it. I particularly like the opening two tracks.

9. Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo I always liked listening to this early version of alt-country toward the end of the day when the wind would calm down and the lighting turn golden, illuminating Mt. Diablo and its foothills.

10(t). Starlite Walker - Silver Jews Having been a fan of this band but not listening to them for a few years, I was inspired to download this album immediately after listening to the “Feed the Ball” podcast featuring Tom Dunne. I’m glad for that.

10(t). Let it Bleed - The Rolling Stones August is always “Rolling Stones Season” for me. Something about the heat and dust and late day glow that their rough, twangy sound seems to accompany really well. This year’s new addition was Let it Bleed, which perfectly fits the above description. The only reason it isn’t higher on the list is because of my long familiarity with 60% of the album’s songs.

H.M. Pony - Orville Peck; Future Me Hates Me - The Beths; Days of the New - Days of the New; Innerspeaker - Tame Impala; Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough? - Bleached

Best Songs

1. "Beast Monster Thing (Love isn’t Love Enough)" - Car Seat Headrest

2. “Needle” - Middle Kids

3. "Kimochi Warui (When? When? When? When? When? When? When?)" - Car Seat Headrest

4. "When I Die" - Beirut

5. "One Kind of Solomon" - The New Pornographers

6. "Siren 042" - Lala Lala & Why?

7. “You’ll Need a Backseat Driver” - The New Pornographers

8. "All I Know" - The Mailboxes

9. "War is Placebo" - Blitzen Trapper

10. “Bored and Razed” - The Raconteurs

11. "Love in Vain" - The Rolling Stones

12. "Turn to Hate" - Orville Peck

12. "Trains Across the Sea" - Silver Jews

13. “The Surprise Knock” - The New Pornographers

14. "Publish My Love" - Rogue Wave

15. “Bodys” - Car Seat Headrest

16. "The Sidewinder Sleeps at Night" - R.E.M.

17. "Slate" - Uncle Tupelo

18. "Hard to Kill" - Bleached

19. "Feed the Tree” - Belly

20. "Leather on the Seat" - The New Pornographers

H.M. "America (Never Been)" - Car Seat Headrest, "Desire Be Desire Go” and “Lucidity” - Tame Impala, “Destroyer” - Lala Lala, “Black Gold” - Soul Asylum, “Salt Eyes” and “Real Thing” - Middle Kids, “Bird on a Wire” - Rogue Wave, “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” - Car Seat Headrest, “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)” and “Thoughts and Prayers” - The Raconteurs

Non-Golf Experiences of the Year

If you can believe it, golf isn't the only important thing in life. Visits to special places, once-in a lifetime events, and time spent with your best people is a huge part of the picture. These moments contribute to personal happiness and indirectly serve as inspiration to what we do out on the golf course site.

1. The birth of my first-born daughter The most obvious number one of all time. I knew parenting would be a lot of work, but I had no idea that the love and emotions that I would feel toward her would be so wonderfully intense.

2. Visiting my newborn nephew as well as participating in his baptism My younger brother beat me to the baby game with his fun little guy, who really isn’t so little and rather shaping up to eventually start at left tackle for the Wolverines. It’s been special so far to see him at a week old and get to be a part of his baptism in the church we grew up in and went to school at.

3. Seeing a game in Camp Randall for the first time It was the perfect accompaniment to a golf study trip, until it wasn’t on the scoreboard. Still, experiencing Madison on game day was amazing. Between the farmers market on the State Capitol, seeing the parties on frat row (which is amazingly right next to the stadium), and the bar scene nearby, where the marching band came playing right through the bar crowd and gave me all the feels, it really is a great place to experience a game day, especially when visiting an old college buddy who has now made Madison his home. The stadium is also cool, and I elected to go for the high middle view in the upper deck since we don’t have that at Michigan Stadium. The view was indeed great and worth it, the gameplay by the Maize and Blue not so much.

4. Finally getting to the new Red Wings arena with my Dad In 2017, we closed down the Joe together in what is still probably the best sporting experience of my life. Thus, it was extra cool to experience the new arena for the first time together. I still miss the old and often intangible charms of the Joe, but for a modern arena the Illitches and Red Wings really did an incredible job, mixing technology, history, style, comfort, sight-lines, and home-ice advantage. The concourse is a big atrium connecting outer buildings and restaurants to the arena structure, which is draped in a giant LED screen called the “jewel-skin.” It also features the original lettering from the old Olympia Stadium marquee, which was extra cool for me to see as I have had a picture of Olympia in my room or office for many years, always wondering what the Old Barn must have been like. The seating, which is the most important thing to me, is steep and pushed in toward the action, leaving the upper sections with a “hovering” feel over the game below. It also doubles in function in making the atmosphere louder and more intimidating for opposing teams. I can’t wait to see what the playoffs will be like in this building, whenever that day comes. Come on Stevie Y, make us great again!

5. Summer weekend getaways to the NorCal coast with the wife The SoCal coast gets all the attention for its weather and beaches, but I might like the NorCal coast more for its beauty, peace, and low-key vibes. We spent time near Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, and much further up north of Fort Bragg on a ranch that has a piece of coast line better and more dramatic than that of Pebble Beach. I wasn’t there to think about golf, but I couldn’t help but start imagining holes over the massive cliffs and bright blue waters.

*As much as I was trying to take a break from golf stuff, it was impossible not to imagine hitting shots over and along these cliffs north of Fort Bragg.*

A word of thanks, and what’s up for 2020...

Thank you to everyone who helped make this year what it was.

To Todd Eckenrode and Origins Golf Design, Ryan Nicholson, Javier Campos, the staffs at Diablo and Cal Club, Joe Hancock, Matt Flint, Scott Clem, Trevor Hansen, and the hard-working crew at Landscapes Unlimited: it was a pleasure working with you all.

To all the superintendents, club pros, historians, and design fans who welcomed me to your courses: it was a real pleasure making your acquaintance, and experiencing your properties will shape my design sensibilities for years to come.

To my extended families, friends, wife, and now my baby daughter: thank you for all the support and understanding that make this unusual career possible.

To you, the reader: I appreciate your interest in us and passion for the game, as well as your patience to get through this entire post!

We are looking forward to this year, which is shaping up to be a busy and exciting one, including some small projects of our own. It should only be getting more fun from here.

Thanks for reading, and cheers,

Brett

Restoration Daydreams: Pebble Beach / February 6, 2020 by Brett Hochstein

Hochstein-Design-Pebble Beach-cover-blended.jpg

With the PGA Tour making its annual trip to California's Monterey Peninsula and the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links, the topic of discussion about its current presentation versus past iterations also returns. Like all special works and places, there is a healthy and impassioned debate about what the course ought to be.

Many common fans think it ought to be well left alone and that it is great as it stands now. Their intentions, I believe, come from a good side of trying to preserve what they see as a classic, but what they often don't know is just how much the course has changed and evolved over time. That can understandably be difficult to see, especially when the bigger, more noticeable changes happened many years ago. For example, it is easy to see what Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw recently did to restore Pinehurst No. 2, but it is more difficult to see the slow evolution from Donald Ross's time to the version of the course that preceded Coore and Crenshaw's work. It is simply difficult to witness the differences wrought by slow change. This is only natural, but it is also what has been happening to Pebble Beach.

The 1929 version of the course, which was renovated for the 1929 U.S. Amateur Championship, is regarded by many as the high water mark of the layout, both in strategy and beauty. This overhaul, which included the rebuilding of 16 greens and the introduction of "imitation sand dunes" around many of the greens, was performed by H. Chandler Egan with help from Roger Lapham and Robert Hunter. Egan made a number of revisions but largely retained the routing as well as two greens (the 8th and 13th) that Alister MacKenzie had recently remodeled in prior years. He adjusted hole lengths, repositioned bunkers, widened fairways, rebuilt and shifted greens, and introduced "imitation sand dunes" as a form of hazard around a number of greens, especially ones at the seaside. Jack Neville and Douglas Grant’s brilliant figure 8 routing, the one you all know and love today, was retained.

From this point though began the evolution of key features, most notably the greens and the hazards. By 1940 for example, Egan's imitation sand dunes had already been eliminated in favor of more formalized bunkers. Those bunkers and some of the greens would then undergo various levels of change in the following decades. Hazards largely stayed in place but took on different styles and sizes. Greens would get smaller and also appear to lose some contour, which is difficult to verify but follows typical trends and certainly seems to show up in some photos. These most noticeable of changes seemed to have settled down by the 1980s though and certainly by the 90s, which also happens to coincide with the increase of television exposure and popularity, especially with U.S. Opens. Except for fairway bunker changes to holes like the 3rd, 6th, and 15th in the mid 2000s, the course has largely appeared the same for at least 3 or 4 decades. This level of repeated familiarity among golfers and tv viewers seems to have fostered a sense of tradition and feeling that this is how the course always has been and always should be. The truth is obviously that “this” is not what it always was.

Egan's "imitation sand dunes" on the famous 7th at Pebble Beach. Image taken from The Golden Age of Golf Architecture by Geoff Shackelford. — *Egan's "imitation sand dunes" on the famous 7th at Pebble Beach. Image taken from* The Golden Age of Golf Architecture *by Geoff Shackelford.*

Even forgetting the differences between the previous eras and focusing on this most recent one (c. 1990-present), there has still been a good amount of unnoticed change, mainly with greens shrinking, bunker sand building up around greens, and bunker edges becoming smoother and more formalized. Nowhere is this more evident than at the famous short 7th, which has a nice historical summary on the Pebble Beach website that I highly recommend taking a look at. Proponents may argue that the defense of the 105 yard hole is its small green, and while I agree with them in general principle, there is no doubting that the green has also shrunken away from the bunkers likely due to a combination of typical mowing shrinkage and sand buildup from recovery shots. A look at the images below from 1992 and the 2018 Pro-Am helps to demonstrate how much a green can change even if the basic idea remains and no active remodel work is done. There is no doubting how much closer the green was to the bunkers on the right and the left.

This 1992 photo courtesy of the Pebble Beach website shows a green that pushes out close to the bunkers, providing more hole locations while better engaging the hazards. — *This 1992 photo courtesy of the* *Pebble Beach website* *shows a green that pushes out close to the bunkers, providing more hole locations while better engaging the hazards.*

This instagram photo taken by me in 2018 shows a green much smaller and more disconnected from its surrounding hazards. Notice too the apparent downslopes from the bunkers to the green that would seem to indicate sand buildup over time and may parti… — This instagram photo taken by me in 2018 shows a green much smaller and more disconnected from its surrounding hazards. Notice too the apparent downslopes from the bunkers to the green that would seem to indicate sand buildup over time and may partially explain the reason for the shrinkage. Note that I also think the bunkers themselves have gotten away from the green surface. It is a true rift in action.

This is a typical process that occurs on any golf course, and it is a good bet that it is common throughout the rest of Pebble Beach's greens. The "hourglass" 17th has been one of the most noticeable offenders with the green shrinking down to two very separate areas and looking to be about half the size or less of its original surface.

There have been some efforts recently to "restore" the greens to both size and shape using old photos. These are certainly an improvement and open up some hole locations and playability, especially at holes like 13 and the aforementioned 17th. With what I have seen in pictures and in person though, I think the work could have been gone more aggressively toward restoration. The images that are available tend to show greens that have more natural flowing contours both big and small, and the grass lines are more varied and intricate. Also in these images, the green sizes still appear to be bigger and pushed much closer to the edges in comparison to the "restored" versions.

The above gallery shows the progression of the "hourglass" green from the original to 2013's tiny version to the redone version seen today in the last two photos.

There are probably a number of reasons that these re-dos aren't as aggressive, some of which are likely out of the control of whomever is doing the work, but that is what seems to be the problem at Pebble Beach though. It still stands as a highly successful mega cash cow and coveted destination, and it has a reputation as one of the most prominent Tour and Major venues of all time. Either one of those factors on their own would make it difficult to facilitate change, but combine the two and, well, good luck. That said though, the Resort could face pressure from the rise of other golf destinations such as Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley, Streamsong, and Pinehurst, and its rankings are currently slipping as other prominent classics undergo aggressive restorations to their Golden Age origins. So, there is some glimmer of a chance, which opens up a whole litany of daydreams and discussions on what to do with the course. Should it be restored? How much should be restored? And if it is restored, to what time period do you restore it?

Here are some of my ideas...

Restoration: How much and to what time period?

For the sake of fun, let's discount the probability that a full restoration won't happen. We are dreaming big. How big exactly? Like any good first approach to analyzing a course, I would start with the greens and the routing. The routing is still mostly intact and one of the all time greats, so there is nothing to alter there. I would also agree that Jack Nicklaus's moving of the par 3 5th hole down to the oceanside was a good one, though admittedly I never saw the original and if it had anything notable to it. There is also no choice but to leave it anyway since the other land has been developed.

The greens of the golf course are a different story though. While the tilted targets are fearsome and provide strategy and challenge, it is obvious that there has been shrinkage and loss of corners, and a closer look also seems to show that many internal contours have softened or flattened as well. Beyond that, mowing lines have become simpler, and a great amount of short grass has been lost.

After the greens the next place to look is overall hole strategy. Outside of the greens becoming smaller targets, has anything else significantly changed in the way that any of the holes are played? From my analysis, I see bunkers pinching the 3rd hole, the arrangement changing greatly on the 6th, and a bunch of bunkers being added to the banal 15th hole. The most egregious change though comes at the 9th hole, where half of the fairway (the half hugging the clifftop no less) has been abandoned in what was likely an effort to make the hole "more difficult." These holes all ought to be addressed.

Bunkers are the next point of contention, as they have certainly morphed stylistically as well as changed places in some instances. What style do we think makes most sense? Is it from 1929? 1990? 2000? One of the many variations in between? My sense tends to lean toward the Golden Age, and while MacKenzie did not end up doing most of the bunkering, Egan did seem to be inspired by what he did do. I would weigh their work strongly against other iterations throughout time, but I would also consider those other versions and ask if they might make more sense.

After bunkers, I would take a look at the general aesthetic and presentation of the golf course. To me, it feels a bit stuck in the 80s/90s ideal where Manicured Everything reigns supreme and cart paths prominently feature. While they do a good job achieving this pristine presentation, it doesn't quite fit with the naturally beautiful landscape that the course is situated in.

So, where does this leave us? Well, it puts us right about at that 1929 high water mark, with a few notable exceptions...

The Bunkers: Which style do you go with?

*MacKenzie/Egan bunkering on the 8th hole moves nicely as a composition, has naturally variable lines, and ties in beautifully and naturally to the adjoining cliffside.*

This is the one place a dunescape could be "believable," but it would have to blend in a lot better to the hillside and 8th tees in order to be so. Pictures sourced from Simon Haines on Twitter. — *This is the one place a dunescape could be "believable," but it would have to blend in a lot better to the hillside and 8th tees in order to be so. Pictures sourced from* *Simon Haines on Twitter*.

Contrary to popular opinion among fellow architecture geeks and my own affinity for sand-scapes, I would ditch a full re-implementation of the "imitation sand dunes" and go with a hybridized mix of a few modern bunkers with the regular, non-dune Egan and MacKenzie bunkers though still adding dune-like elements in a few select places. There are a number of reasons for ditching the dunes, the first being the exact nature of the setting.

Pebble Beach, unlike much of neighboring Cypress Point and MPCC, is not a dunescape. It is a clifftop plain. While there is a loamy sand present on a lot of the top 12" or so on the site, there is clay immediately underneath and bedrock immediately underneath that. Dunes do not exist naturally here, and introducing them does two things problematically wrong.

The first problem is purely aesthetic. I am typically a proponent of dune-y sand, but I just don't think it works here. Perhaps it is the landscape architect or geology side of me, but a dunescape just randomly appearing at a green site compared to the rest of the property, which lacks such, is just not "believable" (believable in the sense that it is hard to believe that such a landscape could exist in a certain spot). The one exception could be out at the point where the 7th green lies, but even that would have to do a better job of blending into the surrounds than the first attempt, seen in the image to the side.

The other problem is a practical one and likely the reason that these features disappeared so quickly (in addition to the Great Depression and cutting maintenance costs). Sand likes to blow around. After all, this is how dunes are formed. When you pile a bunch of sand on top of clay and bedrock, where there is no natural binding to the subsurface, it will blow away entirely. I have to imagine that these features were very difficult to keep (especially in the Depression Era) and that they often made a big mess of the green and surrounds. You may be asking, "well there is still a bunch of sand around the green now, and they don't seem to have much problem now, do they?" You would be right, and the reason there is that the bunkers are concave and hold the sand in, rather than the convex form of a dune where sand is completely exposed to blowing and moving. They also likely receive irrigation overspray, which if trying to mimic a dunescape, you will need to limit that water to keep the vegetation from getting too thick. If you do that though, it will also dry out and be susceptible to blowing away.

Other than these imitation sand dunes though, I would largely if not entirely go back to the aesthetic set by Egan and MacKenzie. These bunkers were varied, beautiful, and flowed naturally with the landscape. They were rougher around the edge. They would naturally "bleed out" in places, such as the bunker spilling into the cliffs on number 8. While I don't think they work generally, there are some elements of the imitation dunes that would work too, mainly the more bunker-like aspects of them such as the set-down right side of 7 (which forms the basis of the current arrangement today) and nearly the entirety of the arrangement on 17. These aspects work both practically and aesthetically and could be incorporated in a restoration.

Regarding 7, I would largely go with the current bunker arrangement but make it much more rugged and natural, especially on the cliff side. Of all the versions I have seen, this current one is my favorite and not just because it has been the most photographed. I love the movement of the lines and the variation of scale with the large front bunker juxtaposed against the tiny ones ringing the right and back sides. I love the muscle and intimidation factor of the front lip. It's a very attractive arrangement fitting of the setting, and it has also tackled the practical measure of players walking on and off the green with the extra grass front left and back left. Can it all be better though? Absolutely. The biggest item would be adding more overall texture to the arrangement and setting. This can be done by breaking up the smooth lines of the edges, adding a variety of finer grasses to grow more naturally on those edges, and splashing sand in the native grasses on the low sides of the right side bunkers to make them blend more naturally into the cliffs. On the cliff edges, think a hybrid between the imitation dunes' tie-ins and what is there now. On the greenside, I'd like to see a closer proximity of the hazard to the putting surface, more short grass (putting and collar), and less of a downslope from the bunkers leading into the green, except for the front bunker, which I like hiding some of the front of the green and kicking forward shots that fall a bit short.

A mix of sprucing up the current arrangement and adding elements of Egan and MacKenzie could work quite well at the 7th. Also note the green shape and size, which is a little larger, closer to the bunkers, more internally contoured, and more irregul… — A mix of sprucing up the current arrangement and adding elements of Egan and MacKenzie could work quite well at the 7th. Also note the green shape and size, which is a little larger, closer to the bunkers, more internally contoured, and more irregular in shape. All that will be discussed in further detail in the next section.

The Greens: General Thoughts

While I am not proposing that the greens become one of the largest sets on Tour, returning them to their original sizes would make them a lot more interesting and likely still just as challenging. There is still a lot of tilt and speed on the greens, and having a longer downhill putt from the wrong side is arguably more difficult than being off the green at the same distance, where a player can generate some loft and spin to slow the ball down. If you were to reintroduce some of the subtle internal contouring that is apparent in the old photos, that would make things more difficult yet and further emphasize not just being on the green but also being in the right position on the green.

In making the greens larger and closer to their original sizes, they should also get tighter to their adjacent bunkers and hazards. Short grass should extend beyond the green until closer to the bunker edge, which would now be more irregular and rugged with longer fine fescue grasses. Doing all this will further engage the hazards with the putting surface and eliminate the current disconnect that exists with the multiple heights of cut and buffer of mowed rough.

Not only were the greens bigger and closer to the bunkers, the grass lines that formed their perimeters have changed over time as well, becoming more smooth and rounded versus the more irregular and naturally moving lines that they once possessed. Bringing back some of these intricate lines will really bring back that classic feel.

The above gallery shows just how far out greens would extend as well as the irregularly moving edge lines that come with doing so. Click on the images to enlarge. Images sourced from The Golden Age of Golf Architecture by Geoff Shackelford

Width and Strategy: Reintroduce Options

The fairway width as presented for the Pro Am and regular resort play (we won't even talk about what they do for the US Open) isn't really all that bad compared to the evolution of other comparable courses of its era. It could still be better in spots though. Some that stand out moderately are the second half of 8, hole 13, and many of the entries into the greens, which are narrower than they ought to be and take away running shots for many resort guests. Two places where changes to width and strategy really stand out though are at the 3rd and 9th holes.

[Use this link here at GolfCourseHistories.com to view changes to Pebble Beach from 1938 to 2013. Look for changes to bunkers, green sizes, and fairway widths, especially on holes 3 and 9.]

The 3rd hole doglegs left around a little ravine, pitches right to left throughout, and has a green that falls to the back left while being tightly defended from the right. Every aspect of this points to the left side being the ideal angle and the right side being an almost impossible place to miss the green. So why the need to add a long line of bunkers down the right side? Seems superfluous, doesn't it? It is already a penalty to be on the right side. If there was a place to add extra defense, it ought to be from the ideal angle down the left. Instead, these new bunkers sort of just guide you into position and double punish you if you miss right.

The 9th hole is a worse offender yet. When Egan did his work to the course, one of his focuses was the oceanside par 4 9th. The land weaves in and out with cliffs falling to the beach on the right, and one of the biggest bow-outs is a lower shelf sitting in the middle-to-short range landing area. Egan thus extended the fairway all the way out to the edge of this point, giving the player an alternate option and what would actually be the better angle into the left to right sloping green. At some point though, this lower right fairway was abandoned. It is still loosely maintained as a native area, but it has been totally overtaken by the highly invasive and thick kikuyu grass, which is also visually unattractive.

Egan's hole had "decidedly two routes" as you can see above with the lower right shelf of fairway. Left image from The Golden Age of Golf Architecture. — *Egan's hole had "decidedly two routes" as you can see above with the lower right shelf of fairway. Left image from* The Golden Age of Golf Architecture.

*The current hole as seen above has decidedly one route.*

You can technically still play out to this area, but your lie is not likely to be very good, that is if you can even find your ball. Bringing back this fairway to me would be one of the most important design moves of any restoration effort. While Pebble Beach is great overall, one of its weaker points design-wise is its number of opportunities for strategic decision making. A large part of this is due to the small, tightly guarded greens, and another part is the the set up of many holes, which rely more heavily on execution versus thinking. Bringing back the full 9th fairway would help change this, diversifying the playing qualities of Pebble Beach while also adding beauty and further engagement with the ocean.

The Overall Aesthetic: How to make it feel "classic" again

Except for when the U.S. Open comes to town and the USGA dries the course out and grows the grass long on the bunker lips, Pebble Beach generally feels like a resort course stuck in that 80s and 90s trend we talked about earlier. Lush green ryegrass/poa turf is standard. There are acres of mowed rough, and the fairways get a very manicured "checkerboard" mowing pattern. Bunkers are "perfect," and edges have been smoothed out and kept short. Asphalt cart paths are everywhere.

In one of the most striking natural environments for golf, Pebble Beach currently does almost all they can to make the course appear unnatural. Fortunately, this isn't that tough of a fix, especially with Pebble Beach's resources. Homogeneity among grass types through the green makes it easy to adjust grass lines, and in doing so I would push the fairways out wider, reduce or eliminate the amount of mowed rough, and reintroduce native grass areas further out of play. For these native areas, fine fescues should dominate, and other fine-textured native species and wildflowers* should be mixed in for diversity. Thin-ness and playability should be emphasized, especially nearer to fairways and zones of play. There are experts who specialize in this very thing, and I would look at bringing them in to implement and manage the changes. Also, designing the irrigation system to not touch these areas is critical.

Changing the mowing patterns on the fairways is an easy fix too, though it may be possible that the current pattern is somewhat "burned in." I would advocate for the "half and half" pattern seen on many classic courses and at Pebble Beach itself seen in the photo below. It is much less visually distracting, feels more natural, and actually saves a bit of labor time compared to striping.

*A simple half and half mowing pattern on the old 9th hole is less distracting from the beautiful natural surrounds. Also note how wide the fairway is, and this isn't even the widest part!*

The last place where a high impact visual change could be made is with the man-made components of the course--cart paths and accessories. Black top cart paths are everywhere at Pebble Beach. Sadly, many may be necessary to have due to heavy resort play cart traffic and maintenance during wet winters, but do they need to be as extraneous as they currently are? The open stretch of holes 6-14 is where the worst offenders lie, with parallel and double paths in multiple places. Perhaps there is some reason of tournament traffic or concern of safety, but it would still seem to me that there is plenty of space and ways to consolidate and reduce these paths.

*At the very least, these paths ought to be consolidated.*

Look at the satellite images above. What should stand out is how close together some of these parallel paths are as well as how visually exposed they are. These ought to be combined into one path as much as possible, and if agronomy and traffic would somehow allow, be eliminated entirely.

For whatever paths do remain, I would look at introducing a more natural appearing material. Crushed stone with a compatible earth tone color could work in areas not prone to washouts. In those areas where a hard surface is necessary, there are some newer alternatives out there that will mix a material of your choice with a hardening polymer. I've seen mixed results of this product, but I think if a sub-base was created similar to the preparation done for concrete, it could hold up well while having the appearance from a distance of being a natural sandy/stony path. I would also look at hiding paths more with native grass areas as much as possible while still maintaining golfer access to their shots in the fairways. The end overall goal would be to eliminate as much of the man-made element that comes with the presence of paths.

Other man made elements to consider are the "accessories" you find out on the course--tee markers, ball washers, signs, bunker rakes, benches, flagsticks, etc. Whether you realize it or not, these things have the ability to either detract or add to the feel of the golfing experience. Non-natural, plastic accessories can feel cheap and very out of place on a grand natural site like Pebble Beach, which should incorporate only natural or classic, pre-1940s elements. I would look to using wood for bunker rakes, something locally unique for tee markers (shells, rocks, Cypress branches, etc.), and a flagstick design that really feels "Golden Age." I've seen firsthand how these detailed touches can really help amplify the feel of a restoration, and it would be no different at a course like Pebble Beach

*Not gazanias from South Africa (or anything not indigenous to coastal California), which appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the 8th hole in 2018 but were soon extricated.

*Hypothetical plan and notes of how Pebble Beach could be brought closer to its 1929 vintage while still serving its modern needs*

Summary

Pebble Beach is one of the grand and special experiences in golf. Its combination of beauty, drama, challenge, and history is arguably unrivaled. It is truly iconic. But a deeper look into that history reveals a modern version of the course that could still be better. Greens expansions would allow for a greater variety of hole locations and being able to “tuck” pins, both of which provide strategic flexibility. Reintroducing green contours and subtle texture would add character as well as make birdies much harder to come by for the pros. Fairway widening would reintroduce strategy as well as make it a bit easier and more fun for the regular resort player. Restoring bunkers and adding more rugged, natural texture to them would make them better fit the landscape and add to the golfing experience. And lastly, consolidating and naturalizing paths, increasing truly native plants and diversity to the natural areas, and simplifying the mowing patterns will all have a net benefit to increasing the pleasure of a walk and a game at Pebble Beach.

These ideas are not radical. They maintain all the core components of the golf course—the routing, the greens, and the overall strategy—but also seek to restore lost elements within those that will only make the course more beautiful and more interesting to play. And isn’t that what we all want out of our golf?

Will this ever happen? Probably not any time soon, and maybe not ever. But at least for now, we can daydream about it.

The State of Bunker Aesthetics: Is “Fancy" Becoming Boring? / March 7, 2019 by Brett Hochstein

Whether or not you classify this as “fancy,” it’s only fair here to use a bunker I’ve built after that title question. This is the 13th hole at The Saticoy Club, whose bunkers we re-designed last year with Thad Layton of Arnold Palmer Design Co.

As State of the Union, State of the State, and State of the (insert institution) season has wrapped up and we turn our attention to Spring (and golf season), I thought maybe it would be fun to expound on something marginally less contentious—bunker styles in golf course design.

Bunkers are always a hot topic when it comes to golf holes, and really, this makes a good deal of sense. Bunkers, when ferocious enough, can be critical in dictating strategy. This in itself leads to all sorts of chatter, whether it is about how someone made a heroic carry over the deep pit on the corner of the dogleg (or didn’t) or if it is a hearty debate on whether a bunker should be shifted around (or if it should even be there at all).

Bunker conditioning is another matter. As golf course maintenance technology continues to advance and the professional game continues to get airtime in crystal clear high definition, many players have come to expect perfect or consistent conditions from bunker to bunker, completely ignoring that this is neither realistic nor in the true spirit of a bunker, which is a hazard (2019 rulebook verbiage be damned).

Another key talking point is visual. In a landscape dominated by (often green) turf grass, sand sticks out, further making bunkers a dominant feature of a course. As genetically diverse human beings, we are predisposed to our own tastes for how things should look, and this in turn leads to more debates about the visual stylings of different bunkers. This is what I am mainly here today to discuss.

Particularly, I have started to see some push-back in recent years about the preponderance of flashy, wavy, “frilly-edged” bunkers. There are probably a few reasons for these complaints, many of which I can understand. Some are about maintenance (too much sand to rake, edges too difficult to maintain), and some are criticisms of poorly executed aesthetic attempts at the look (excessively wiggly edges on a plain landform). Most of all though, the push back seems to be driven by the constant and natural human craving for something different.

Simpson-like bunkering at Cuscowilla. Image from golfclubatlas.com — *Simpson-like bunkering at Cuscowilla. Image from* *golfclubatlas.com*

It is true that a lot of projects in recent years have sought to mimic a certain aesthetic of flashed sand, “naturally” broken lines, and a rough edge. There is no doubt I have often been in that camp myself with recent work.* How did we get here though? It could be said that it started with Sand Hills, whose massive, rugged bunkers played off the natural blowouts on the property and were possibly the first to be built using excavators. It could be traced to Tom Doak and Gil Hanse making a trip to California to study the stylings of Alister MacKenzie and George Thomas before applying it to their work at Black Forest and later Stonewall. Or it could be when Coore & Crenshaw’s Jeff Bradley started doing his best Tom Simpson impersonation at Cuscowilla. Notice something in those last two postulations though: they both mention architects of the past. The true origin of this bunker style, like many great components of design today, comes from the Golden Age, which, going even further back, was inspired by nature itself. With a couple of architects looking back to the past, these flashier and more intricate styles were reintroduced to the present. In the following 20 or so years since, talented and competitive shapers, adaptive excavator buckets, and some great sandy sites have all elevated and diversified the genre, making it a popular choice among designers and developers today.

And I have to say, often times it is hard to argue with the style. The visual of the sand provides a nice contrast to the landscape, the rugged texture can enhance the feeling of being in nature, and the lines, when done right, can be beautifully artistic. These are beautiful bunkers often located in beautiful settings.

The brilliant bunkering and the way it seamlessly flows from formal edges to scrubby, sandy ground at Gil Hanse’s Ohoopee Match Club is some of the best bunker work I’ve ever seen. Image courtesy of Andy Johnson of thefriedegg.com. — The brilliant bunkering and the way it seamlessly flows from formal edges to scrubby, sandy ground at Gil Hanse’s Ohoopee Match Club is some of the best bunker work I’ve ever seen. Image courtesy of Andy Johnson of *thefriedegg.com*.

But are we overdoing it? If you look at it only within the pool of golf course projects of the last 15 or so years, which have been very lean in numbers compared to those of the past, you could make the argument towards “yes.” If you look at it within the overall pool of all golf courses though, which is vast (and mostly uninspiring), this style does still stand out as interesting and unusual. Because the newest projects get the most attention though (especially in the age of social media), and because there are so few of them, the perception seems to have become that this is the only style of bunkering in golf anymore, which is patently false. It just happens to be the style getting the most attention, rightly or wrongly.

With all of that understood, I get the cries for going a different direction and pushing for variety. After all, Donald Ross said, “Variety is the spice of golf, just as it is of life.” Sameness, even excellent sameness, can get kind of boring. That is possibly one reason why the broad, machine-built bunkers came into popularity after the War and preceding Golden Age. That is possibly why Pete Dye’s work later felt like a breath of fresh air in response to that trend with his sharp, funky shapes and railroad ties. And that is likely why Doak and Hanse headed West in the early 90s to build something different and more intricate, inspired by the flashiest work of the 1920s and 30s.

So here we are in 2019, and the question becomes, “are we coming full circle once again?” Whether we actually are or aren’t, it is sort of starting to feel that way. One reason for that feeling could be the number of restoration projects popping up around the Midwest and Northeast, most of which involve revitalizing or returning to a bunkering style that is more grass faced and flat bottomed in nature. There are also a couple of the new projects as well that have scrapped the flashy trend and gone a different direction. Two happen to be in Northern Michigan (an area which ironically is full of naturally sandy soil): Tom Doak’s “The Loop” at Forest Dunes, and Dana Fry and Jason Straka’s South Course at Arcadia Bluffs. Doak, who actively tries to diversify his aesthetics from course-to-course to avoid a typecast effect, went much simpler and a little less “flashed” at The Loop than most of his other work. The biggest reason for this was to keep the focus on the routing and the contours, which are the bread and butter of the course, but there was probably some simple intent just to change it up as well.

The geometrical shaping of Arcadia Bluffs South Course, taken before sand installed. Image courtesy of Dana Fry through GolfAdvisor.com — *The geometrical shaping of Arcadia Bluffs South Course, taken before sand installed. Image courtesy of Dana Fry through* *GolfAdvisor.com*

*The bunker scheme at Doak’s “The Loop” is much simpler than a majority of his works, allowing the routing and the contouring to shine.*

At Arcadia Bluffs, they sought to provide something different, especially for the public-access resort scene. Drawing inspiration from Chicago Golf Club located kitty-corner far across Lake Michigan, they went with a highly angular style in the mold of Seth Raynor and Charles Blair MacDonald. The wide open, geometric course has a number of greens with squared-off corners, and the bunkers are the deep and simply engineered trenches that you would see on many Raynor designs. While I can’t fully judge the work until seeing it in person, it appears they have done a good job in mimicking the style, and, at the very least, they have provided something different and new for most of their clientele.

That is a small sample size (aren’t they all when only a handful of new builds are opened a year?), but it does indicate that a different look and approach is being considered. I can be on board with this, but I would like to see that style get pushed further artistically, with more of a natural-feeling irregularity to the faces and the top lines. I’d also like to see a real emphasis on letting the grass faces go thin and rugged, which would not only create a beautiful, contrasting look, it would also allow more balls landing on the face to release down to the sand. This is much easier said than done and would be nearly impossible to consistently achieve across a given property, but having that virtuous goal for thin and wispy is a great start.

Above: a mix of old and modern bunkers where the grass face is left thinner.

It should be interesting to see how some of the new high-profile developments turn out in the next few years. What will Coore and Crenshaw do if their opportunity on a true Scottish linksland is given the green light? Will Tom Doak do something much different from the open sandy waste areas commonly found on the other two courses at Sand Valley? Will the Hanse team continue to evolve their recent quasi-Australian style of hard bunker edges bleeding out into scruffy, sandy areas?

That will all be fun to keep an eye on, but the biggest question remains—what type of bunkers or hazards have we not yet thought of? What could be the next big development? I’ve got an idea for something that I think would work well in the California and Western U.S. landscape, looking very cool and natural while having serious impacts on strategy. It needs to be the right type of site though, and opportunities for new builds in the West (and everywhere) are scarce. I could also maybe see a return to a version of the very odd, sculpture-like features found in some bunkers from the Victorian era (see images below), but these come with their own maintenance challenges and will be sure to rankle a card-and-pencil player who finds an impossible lie (which in matchplay might just simply be one lost hole, but I digress). Also, once again, it’s not really a “new” idea.

Above: wild landforms in the sand at Hangar Hill and the original Shinnecock Hills (middle image). Images courtesy @Hainesy76 and @SHistorians via Twitter

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe there isn’t really a new and undiscovered idea out there, and our goal should be to continue to do what works best for each specific site. Perhaps we keep pushing what we are already doing, injecting more subtle creativity in each new attempt without losing sight of functionality and strategy. Let us also seek to utilize the odd features found on any given property. Instead of wiping a site clean before starting a project, we should ask if that wall, barn, road, berm, washout, water tower, or any other item of funk could be utilized in the design. It could add value strategy of the course while also providing a sense of place unique to that design. And, in the end, isn’t that what any good bunker or set of bunkers ought to do?

*Not a bunker, but this old wall and stone shed at Anstruther make for a perfect hazard to defend the green from those who play safely away from the cliffs*

*To be fair though, I’ve worked on a lot of sites that warranted it, whether it is in sandy Holland or France or in the rolling hills of California, where elements of Thomas and MacKenzie styles make perfect sense both in the immediate landscape and in context with the famous courses of the region. It’s also something that every client and architect I’ve worked with has wanted as well.

The Best Of: 2018 / January 14, 2019 by Brett Hochstein

While we continued to chase new projects through RFPs and interviews, 2018 was highlighted by a return to the field with a full bunker renovation at The Saticoy Club near Ventura, CA. Getting back into the dirt and the excavator was good for multiple reasons—refine skills, increase experience, pay some bills—but maybe the most important of all was the reminder of how satisfying it is to get out and do creative work on a bigger scale. The whole reason I ever wanted to get into this golf design thing was to do creative work, and nothing is more of that than the actual shaping of golf features. No matter how business progresses over the years, I plan to be doing as much of this creative work as possible. It’s the driving force of everything we do.

The following contains a comprehensive look back on Hochstein Design’s 2018. I first dive into the work we did, primarily that which went into the ground (for multiple reasons, it’s too hard to comment on speculative work, as much as I would love to share some of those drawings and ideas). The second section explores some of the new golf courses visited this past year, highlighted by a study trip to Philadelphia that included visits to both Merion and Pine Valley. Finally, I round it out with some non-golf items like music and travel. Golf purists may not care what I think of that, but those things to me play an important role in shaping out the year.

As usual, everything is presented in list form for fun. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

THE WORK

As mentioned before, Saticoy was the big project of the year. Thad Layton of Arnold Palmer Design Company called me up at the end of last year, inquiring about my interest in working at a club near Ventura with George Thomas ties in its history. It all sounded pretty good to me, and luckily it all came together with the project breaking ground in May.

*The original Saticoy 9 in 1938. A lot of bunkers had clearly already been filled in, a trend during the Depression-Era 30s.*

Saticoy CC (now renamed The Saticoy Club) was originally a 9 hole Thomas design down in the valley in the town of Saticoy. With a desire to grow to a full 18 though, they moved up into the nearby hills in the early 1960s and contracted William F. Bell (son of Billy Bell, George Thomas’s long time partner) to design the new course. It would be part of a newly beginning trend linking housing development and golf, but in this early version the routing seems not to have been overly compromised. Most of the housing sits up on narrow ridges that would have been difficult to place golf holes, and the best stretch of the property—the middle run of the back nine—was left alone to golf. The ground movement throughout the course is very good and interesting, and the greens are treacherously pitched, especially at today’s speeds. The bunker arrangement was quintessential 60s though—penal and repetitive—and made even moreso that way after the latest renovation by John Harbottle. They had also become especially difficult to play with sand splash build up making the deep bunkers even deeper. The first phase of the project was to work on these bunkers, first making them more playable but perhaps more importantly shifting them around to increase strategic interest among the holes. This is somewhat subtle work in the grand scheme of design, but it can have a major impact on how the hole can be played in both the long game and the short game. These sorts of changes can be just as satisfying as blowing the whole thing up and starting over.

It was a really great project to be involved with. Sure, it was bunker building in a beautiful spot, and Thad allowed a level of autonomy and input that drove me to do my best. What was really great about the project though were the people. Tim Paulson, the superintendent, was great to work with and is one of those guys who “gets it” when it comes to both turfgrass and architecture. Jeff Bradley of Coore and Crenshaw fame came in to help us along during the home stretch. As you can imagine, he was a really cool guy and great to stop and have a chat with. John Bolasky, the construction superintendent, straddles that perfect line between being easy-going and getting the job done. You can’t ask for much more than that in a contractor. And of course, Thad was a great partner throughout the project, and I really think we complemented each others’ respective skill sets. You can only hope for more projects to go like this one.

Saticoy wasn’t the only thing we did out in the field though. In August, I had to peel off the last bit of Saticoy to go build 3 new bunkers on the 7th hole at Santa Ana before returning back up to Ventura County. We also had a tee extension/renovation on the 6th hole at Cal Club, one of the benefits of which was tearing down the fence to open views of the Bay, and a reshaping project on the right side of the 17th hole at Orinda after eliminating a cart path there. Wiping out that ugly landform and returning it to how it used to be was an especially satisfying task.

Favorite Features of the Field

*The Canyon Bunker just after shaping. Cutting straight into an existing landform brings instant gratification.*

1. Canyon Bunker, Saticoy Funny enough, this could probably also double as my least favorite thing I worked on for how difficult and discomforting it was operating right next to the canyon edge. It was fun though to carve something straight out of the existing landform and make an instant impact. For awhile I wondered if we could even do a bunker in that spot, the concerns being overall steepness and finding a drainage solution that wouldn’t cause erosion. After seeing massive washouts coming from small pipes at Rustic Canyon and along U.S. 101, I knew that traditional bunker water collection and piping it out wouldn’t be an option unless somehow we could run the pipe all the way down to the base of the canyon—a very difficult task indeed. We decided to go for an informal “waste” bunker with straight line interceptor drains at the bottom that led to sumps in place. This means some water would be caught and held in place, and heavier rains would sheet over the edge broadly, just as they did before. With all this, we were able to achieve what we set out to do—create a visually striking feature as well as get balls to hold and keep from kicking down out of bounds into the canyon below.

2. Hole 13 Greenside Bunkers and Slope, Saticoy The first in a stretch of 3 outstanding and dramatic holes, the par 3 13th was just another hole before the project work started. It was surrounded by trees, especially at the back, and had that typical “bunker left, bunker(s) right” arrangement that every other hole on the course had. After clearing trees to open up the views, including revealing the dramatic backdrop and highlighting a couple of specimen stone pines, the feel of the hole completely changed for the better. After eliminating all the bunkers on the right, replacing them with a short grass kicker slope, and adding an additional little one on the left to cut a bit across the front of the green, the strategy of the hole is also completely different. Long hitters now have a tucked pin on the left to attack, and short hitters also have a way of finding it by hitting a running shot off the kicker slope.

*Hole 13, The Saticoy Club. The backdrop was previously a wall of trees.*

3. Hole 2 Greenside Bunkers and Surrounds - Saticoy This was a hole that was previously completely surrounded by bunkers, and similar to the 13th, we sought to change that up and give the shorter hitter another option to try and find the green by eliminating the left bunker and shrinking the front one in half. In place of the sand are short grass and contours that could help corral the ball onto the small, narrow putting surface. Yes, the hole is already a short par 4 for many. There are plenty of players though that still hit a longer club into the green, and it is important to consider their interests as well. On top of this, I think the arrangement turned out to be one of the more attractive sets on the course and fitting of the neat setting of the hole among giant old eucalyptus trees.

4. Hole 14 Greenside Bunkers and Surrounds - Saticoy There are a number of things to note here besides this being one of the best settings I’ve ever had the pleasure to work in. The first is that the left greenside bunker is one of my favorite individual bunkers that we rebuilt on the project. While working on it, I shifted the front part of it left about 5 or 6 feet. This is important because it makes a long approach into the par 5 green that much more inviting. The right side of the green had a bunker, but again in the name of variety, we eliminated it and replaced it with a sharp short grass falloff. Misses to the right will be pushed well away from the green, but there are more options now for how to play the recovery. The back bunker was supposed to be rebuilt in place, but the more I looked at it from the tee, the more it just felt disconnected from everything else going on. Additionally, it felt like there ought to be a bunker in the lower left approach area, where two canary pines happened to be standing at the time. I pitched this to Thad, and luckily everyone else was on board with the field change. It was a pain pulling out the stumps, and there was some difficult brush clearing that the grounds staff thankfully helped with, but the effort was well worth it.

5. Hole 15 Fairway Bunkers - Saticoy Trees and out of bounds on the left force a lot of the shorter hitters down the right of the hole, where a downslope would carry a ball right into the large first fairway bunker. To combat this, we shifted the first bunker out to the right to allow more room to skirt it. In exchange of that, we shifted the second fairway bunker to the left to catch more of the longer drives. These bunkers and the right greenside bunker all overlaid each other despite being well spread apart, and getting them to match up properly required a whole lot of cart rides back to the tees to check out how the top lines were all relating to one another.

*The bunkers on the 15th at Saticoy play off of each other nicely, despite having gaps of about 40 and 70 yards between them.*

6. Hole 7 New Bunkers - Santa Ana A loss of some specimen eucalyptus trees left the previously bunkerless hole a bit lacking in defense and visual features. Jay Blasi came up with a really nice scheme of 3 bunkers as a replacement solution. A big one at the turn of the grassline near the green keeps the big hitters honest, a little pot near that one also guards the aggressive line, and big bunker short and right guards what is actually the ideal line while providing nice visual balance.

*New 7th hole bunkers at Santa Ana still in the dirt*

7. Hole 5 Bunkers - Saticoy Besides greatly shrinking the front right greenside bunker and wrapping fairway around it, these bunkers were all just rebuilt in place. Nonetheless I really liked how they turned out and profile against one another.

*Hole 18 fairway bunker almost finished, Saticoy Club*

8. Hole 18 Fairway Bunker - Saticoy The biggest bunker at Saticoy by good margin, this was a fun one to build and have come together. Always nice to have a big space to work and throw dirt around!

9. 17th Fairway Cartpath erasing - Orinda Bunkers and greens are the most fun and satisfying features to work on, but erasing an ugly cartpath is not that far behind. It isn’t just the cartpath itself, it is the landforms needed to make it a flat and traversable surface. In the case of the 17th hole at Orinda, those landforms were particularly hideous as they broke up a broad, natural hillside, leaving an odd horizon line at the break. Spend a couple of hours on a dozer though, and it is mercifully gone.

10. 12th Hole Bunkers - Saticoy There was a thought at one point to eliminate the rear bunker of the left greenside pair, but after doing the same exact thing on the previous hole, it was better to leave it. Also, I thought with some tweaking that they could turn out to be a pretty nice pair. (previously it was hard to tell that they were two as the back bunker was hardly visible) They are simpler than a lot of others on the course, but I do think they work well together. As a bonus, they are now visible from the tees on 11 thanks to tree clearing. That was another reason to keep the pair together.

H.M. 6th tee renovation - Cal Club, Hole 10 Bunkers - Saticoy, Hole 11 Bunkers - Saticoy, Practice Bunker 2 - Saticoy

Favorite Features off the Field

1. Golf Guide Podcast

2. Jack Fleming Article for Golf Guide

3. Doing mock design drawings for potential work in the office (though they haven’t quite led to anything yet!)

Best Work Experiences

*Good views, solitude, and beautiful evening light were the perks of working around the 14th green at Saticoy.*

1. Working the greenside bunker on the 14th at Saticoy, a peaceful, natural corner with views down the canyon and out into the Pacific.

2. The Channel Islands appearing from the haze on a hot evening while working the fairway bunkers on the 5th at Saticoy.

3. Seeing the fence go down on the 6th tee at Cal Club and opening up new views to the San Francisco Bay

4. Building new bunkers on the 7th at Santa Ana. It was nice to work out there surrounded in turf as opposed to dirt for a change!

5. Working at Orinda close to home is always a good deal. It’s even better when you get to wipe out a benched-in carpath you’ve been dying to re-naturalize for years.

THE GOLF

There is little doubt what was the highlight of golf discovery in 2018: a late September trip to Philadelphia. While I had been to the city around 10 or so times before, there had never been any time to go and have a look at any of the area’s great golf courses. With a potential visit for a family event looming, we decided to commit and make a week of it so that I could spend some time checking out a few of these great courses. In the 5 waterlogged days available to me, I was able to walk 9 different courses in both PA and NJ, including the two really big boys, Pine Valley and Merion.

Out West, I was able to check out a few courses while working at Saticoy. The South Course at LACC was the highlight, and I was able to see George Thomas’s two half-lost courses at Ojai and La Cumbre.

Along the way, I met a great number of good people, including superintendents, GMs, head professionals, enthusiastic members, and others. I’m appreciative of all these encounters and the hospitality that everyone showed me.

Best New-to-me Golf Courses Seen in 2018

The brackets [ ] indicate a "Doak Scale" rating. It should be understood that I didn't spend the same amount of time on every place and that they were all first time visits. These rankings and ratings are somewhat arbitrary and based on what I saw, understood, and felt about each course. I also get admittedly swayed by firm conditions and links golf in particular; a true links course generally gets boosted by 1 or even 2 "Doak points" whenever I rate it. This didn’t actually seem to affect the soggy Philly courses too much though—their quality architecture is pretty easy to see and appreciate. Bottom line is don't get too worried if something seems too high or low--these are good golf courses that are largely interchangeable.

1. Pine Valley - Pine Valley, NJ; George Crump, with input and assistance from a number of fellow architects [10] I had always questioned Pine Valley’s status at the top, for its overall difficulty would seem to preclude it from being the ideal course. I still feel like the Old Course is the best, but damn, Pine Valley is really good. What really stands out to me about Pine Valley besides its beautifully scrubby setting is the shear amount of variety. Big greens, small greens. Open approaches, closed-off approaches. Wide fairways, tight fairways. There is a lot going on at all times, and I also felt like it was actually fairly playable for a mid-handicapper.

2. Merion (East) - Ardmore, PA; Hugh Wilson, with some revisions by William Flynn [9/Inc.] I was able to walk the East Course at the end of Gil Hanse’s renovation project with most of the course growing back in. It wasn’t a final product but it was easy enough to see everything going on, and there is a lot going on. Merion East uses the land beautifully not just to get a full 18 hole course but also to create a great variety of challenges. The course is no picnic, especially if the rough is left shaggy, but the architectural variety would make it a very fun and engaging play if your game is on. I’m probably rating this a 10 after seeing it in its re-completed state.

3. Aronimink - Newtown Square, PA; Donald Ross and J.B. McGovern* with recent restoration by Gil Hanse [8] This course is just solid. The routing is good, the bunkering is uniquely styled and well placed, and the greens have a lot of interesting stuff going on without ever crossing the line into crazy. The restoration work was carried out really well, with green edges recaptured, trees selectively cleared, and the bunkers restored to the version just after the course opened, of which there are numerous aerials available to see and mimic. It doesn’t matter whether Ross or McGovern were responsible for these bunkers, the right move was restoring to this version, which stands as unique in golf.

*The 11th at Aronimink features a little of everything—clustered bunkering, the old white house, and a green with a lot going on.*

4. Los Angeles Country Club (South) - Los Angeles, CA; Recent re-design by Gil Hanse [7] In just about every way, I think the Hanse team nailed this project. The South course is the perfect complement to the famous North. It is shorter, friendlier, and full of quirk. There is a great variety to the holes, including the table-like Biarritz on the 4th, the bunkerless 5th green with its front right mound, the “Redan-arritz” 9th, and the short grass Lion’s Mouth 10th green. This is all while doing excellent work with the native areas and washes and creating a bunker style similar to the North. The setting is also unlike any other, with the playing field unfolding beneath the glassy skyscrapers of Century City. While the North Course is an excellent strategic test of golf, the South is a course to just go out and have some fun. There can’t really be a much better 1-2 punch than that.

5. Merion (West) - Ardmore, PA; Hugh Wilson [7] I feel like I am much higher on this course than most people, but I really did enjoy it. The greens complexes feel even older and funkier than their East counterpart while also containing a lot of subtle beauty. The property has a few distinct sections, including a broad upper plateau, an intimate lower stream area, and rolling ground in between. The routing does a good job of meandering in and out of these different sections so well that I didn’t even realize I had returned to similar parts of the course I had already played. Throw in the short overall yardage and some quirk like the fallaway drop shot green at the 4th or the tees directly off the back of the 9th green, and you have a course that feels like it could be in the middle of the UK. That is a good thing in my book.

6. Rolling Green (Front 9 Only) - Springfield, PA; William Flynn [7/Inc.] It’s a testament to the overall strength of the Philadelphia golf scene that I previously knew little about this course. Quintessentially William Flynn, the course is a sublime mix of bold and simple. Big land movements are well used in the routing, and sweeping slopes are combined with big simple bunkering to create highly effective strategy and shot demands. Unfortunately, the rain reached such an extreme level of downpour that I retreated after nine. I am looking forward to getting back and seeing the rest though as well as what Riley Johns and Keith Rhebb are able to do in their restoration efforts.

7. Northwood - Monte Rio, CA; Alister MacKenzie [6] I finally made the trek up to the Russian River to play this fabled MacKenzie track among the redwoods. Because of how narrow and tree lined it looked, I didn’t really have that high of hopes for it despite the MacKenzie pedigree. My hopes were vastly exceeded, though. To start, the course is actually much wider than what it appears; the massive scale of the trees is what creates the narrowing effect. It’s fairly short nature also calls for more of a control game as well—I think I hit driver only 3 times. Throw in MacKenzie greens and a truly special setting, and you have a great golfing experience.

*Golf Guide’s Kyle Surlow provides a nice sense of scale among the mighty redwoods of Northwood.*

8. Gulph Mills - King of Prussia, PA; Primarily Donald Ross and Perry Maxwell [6] I had the misfortune of playing Gulph Mills after yet another couple of inches of rain, but that didn’t prevent me from seeing what was some pretty good architecture, even if it’s been a little jumbled over time. Gil Hanse has helped tie it all back together as well as taking out trees to open up vistas around the beautiful, pastoral property. I mainly came for the greens, especially the Maxwell ones, and they did not disappoint.

9. The Saticoy Club - Somis, CA, William F. Bell, with recent bunker revisions by Thad Layton (A.P.D.C.) [5.5] After the first phase of tree removal, there is now some room to play this up and down replacement course to the original George Thomas nine holer. It’s a 1960s housing development course, but don’t let that fool you, as there is some very good golf out here. With really good land movement, quick tilted greens, and standout holes like the 2nd, 13th, and 14th, Saticoy is worth checking out if in the area.

(t)10. Ojai Valley Inn - Ojai, CA; George Thomas, with many modifications through the years [5] George Thomas’s Golf Architecture in America is a fantastic read, but it also contains a large collection of tragic photos of dramatic SoCal golf courses that no longer exist in anything resembling that previous form. Two of those courses are his own—Ojai and La Cumbre. They both still exist, and there are still some good component features of them—the setting at Ojai is still incredible, for example—but the original drama and character is gone and not very easy to replace. It is still well worth trying to get back what you can, however. I am not sure how much incentive Ojai has in doing so at this time, but La Cumbre is starting to work with Jay Blasi, who I imagine will be working to try and put back whatever he can.

(t)10. La Cumbre - Santa Barbara, CA; George Thomas, with many modifications through the years [5] See above.

H.M. Cobb’s Creek - Philadelphia, PA, Hugh Wilson; Tavistock - Haddonfield, NJ; Alex Findlay; Bala - Philadelphia, PA, William Flynn; Corica Park - Alameda, CA, Rees Jones and Marc Logan; Quail Lodge - Carmel, CA, Robert Muir Graves, Todd Eckenrode; Contra Costa - Pleasant Hill, CA, Robert Trent Jones II redesign; Sierra View CC - Roseville, CA, Jack Fleming; Harding Park (Jack Fleming 9) - San Francisco, CA, Jack Fleming; Golden Gate Park - San Francisco, CA, Jack Fleming

Cobb's Creek No. 3

Tavistock No. 15

Bala No. 16

Golden Gate Park No. 6

*His involvement is speculated upon and mostly goes to the bunkers, which are different from Ross’s plan and anything else that Ross had built before or after.

Best New Holes Seen

This was honestly hard to discern, as so many courses in Philadelphia are almost equally solid throughout. It is also hard not to make this a list of just Pine Valley and Merion holes; nonetheless, I will shoot for diversity. Take the actual ranking with a grain of salt and just appreciate these holes as good examples of design.

1. Merion (East) No. 5

2. Pine Valley No. 13

3. LACC (South) No. 4

*LACC South No. 4. I just love the feel and look of this hole.*

4. Saticoy No. 14

5. Pine Valley No. 4

6. Aronimink No. 6

7. Pine Valley No. 16

8. Rolling Green No. 7

*This bunker short and right is just where you would want a long iron or wood shot to land and feed onto the right-to-left tilted green.*

9. Cobb’s Creek No. 12

10. Merion (West) No. 5

H.M. Pine Valley No. 1 (and every other hole), Merion (East) No. 10 (and every other hole), Saticoy No. 13, Gulph Mills Nos. 3-6, Northwood No. 6, Corica Park No. 2, Tavistock No. 11, Aronimink (Pick one, any one. It’s sure to be a good hole)

Best Greens: Design, Interest, and Sensibility

*Aronimink’s greens are special and classic. Here is the 12th green with the 5th and the 4th further off in the background.*

1. Pine Valley Bold, with lots of variety in size and strategy. The 1st, 4th, and 16th were my favorites.

2. Merion (East) I didn’t know what was in the ground before the recent work, but supposedly they are matched back up exactly as before by way of laser data. I liked what I saw though. The mix of bold and subtle creates challenges both on approaches and shorter putts. My favorite green was the large, tilting 5th.

3. Aronimink These aren’t quite the best Ross greens I’ve seen (hello Glens Falls), but they are pretty close to it. There is a lot of movement and variety that flow beautifully, and greens expansions in the restoration have reclaimed some very interesting pins and short game shots.

4. LACC (South) There are some really creative and bold green complexes on the South course, which also helps set it apart from the North, whose greens, while very good, are much simpler.

*The short grass Lion’s Mouth-like green at LACC South is both unusual and fun.*

5. Gulph Mills Perry Maxwell was responsible for a number of greens here, and you can tell as those greens have very natural looking, variable contours that while often subtle are very impactful upon play.

H.M. Northwood, Merion (West), Tavistock

Best Bunkering: Playing Importance, Aesthetics, and Context

1. Pine Valley Rugged, varied, punishing, and important to play. The tight little “surprise!” trench bunkers around the backs of greens were a highlight to me.

*Rugged, beautiful, and strategic—the bunkering at Pine Valley. This is hole 13, probably my favorite on the course.*

2. Aronimink Every time I checked the yardage of fairway bunkers guarding the ideal line (which was often dictated by greenside bunkering), they would be right around the yardage I would be trying to drive the ball. With some variety mixed in, that is pretty ideal for a course built to test your game. Also, McGovern’s clustered style really isn’t quite like Ross (or anything else), but kudos to the Hanse team for bringing back this version.

*Jonathan Reisetter and Todd Eckenrode created some beautiful bunkering at Quail Lodge*

3. Merion (East) Merion, like many old courses, always had that rugged sort of style to its bunkering. What always appealed to me though is the variety in size and scale of them. Nowhere is that more apparent than on a single hole, the 4th, which traverses across a massive fairway bunker before reaching a green surrounded by a series of little bunkers. The versions I saw had just been reworked by the Hanse team. They were still growing in when I walked around, but it will be interesting to see how they evolve aesthetically.

4. Rolling Green William Flynn is the master of dead simple strategy. Rolling Green is full of big, bold bunkers located right in the spot where you would like to play your ball.

5. LACC (South) More good work by the Hanse team. Stylistically similar to the more famous North course, the bunkers are fewer on the South, where short grass and contours come more into play and rightfully provide an ideal complement to the North.

H.M. Quail Lodge, Saticoy, Gulph Mills

*The looping routing at the little par 3 course at Golden Gate Park makes it feel like an adventure while also changing up the angle of the Pacific wind.*

Best Routings

(t)1. Pine Valley

(t)1. Merion

3. Rolling Green

4. Golden Gate Park

5. Merion (West)

H.M. LACC (South), Northwood, Aronimink

Champions of Fast and Firm--Best Turf + Conditions

This is a short and pretty incomplete list this year because of the abnormally wet conditions around Philadelphia this fall. If anyone watched the BMW Championship at Aronimink and saw how soft and wet it was, well, it only got worse from there. Weeks later when I visited, there were still bleachers and tournament stands all over because they could not get any equipment to them due to how soft the ground was. Outside of sandy Pine Valley, I can’t fairly assess any course for what their conditions might normally be and how they might normally play. I give a lot of credit though to every superintendent just for hanging on and staying afloat though, no pun intended.

*Firm and fast rules the day at Corica Park*

1. LACC (South) Short, lean and bouncy bermudagrass all over. The ground game is highly encouraged here, both from a distance and near the greens.

2. Corica Park Marc Logan, effective co-designer of the new course at Corica, is an agronomist by trade. He’s also Australian and therefore understands how to get lean, fast playing surfaces. The tight Santa Ana bermuda fairways lead right into slick approaches and surrounds of the quick, firm greens.

3. Pine Valley Not surprisingly, the only Philadelphia area course that had any semblance of firmness. Sand is good for golf.

4. Saticoy This goes particularly for the front nine, which has seen the fairways re-sodded with Santa Ana Bermuda. (The back nine will get the same treatment in a future phase of work.) The greens are notably slick and true, creating definite “no go” zones around the hole.

5. Plum Hollow Despite being the end of October after a rainy week previously, the fairways were firm and bouncy and the greens quite speedy. Superintendent John Sabat is doing a great job.

H.M. Merion (East) (Basically a futures projection), Contra Costa

Best Playing/Walking Experiences

*Coming up the 9th at Aetna Springs for the final time*

1. Also qualifying for “Most Bittersweet” round, my final go around at Aetna Springs tops the list. Still holding out faint hope for a comeback…

2. Walking Pine Valley with Jamie Slonis. This was a surprise invite from the night before, and it lived up to the hype. We went back nine first and were able to avoid play enough to see almost everything. This was definitely a case where I was glad to just walk for my first time out there, as I could really focus and look at things from different angles without worrying about hitting shots.

3. No clubs in tow, but getting to revisit LACC with Tommy Naccarato and learn more about its restoration process was a big highlight. Seeing the very cool South course for the first time too was a bonus.

4. Joining a Linksoul “Mandatory Golf Friday” at the last second and walking up to find I’m playing Matt Ginella and John Ashworth, both of whom I had never met. The real kicker was the Blue Angels taking off about 70 feet over our heads on the 6th tee—I don’t know if any of us had ever heard (or felt) anything that loud.

5. Finally getting in a round at Northwood with Kyle Surlow of Golf Guide. It was nice that we finished just before the monsoon, too.

(t)6. Walking Merion East with Ben Hillard of the Hanse team. Great to catch up with a friend, learn more about what they were doing, and take in a world class golf course.

(t)6. Playing Merion West alone on a nearly empty, gray fall Monday.

*Merion West looking back down the 10th hole from the 18th tees*

8. Another where I wasn’t playing, but walking Cobb’s Creek with historian Joe Bausch and learning all about it’s story was a really cool experience.

9. Finally playing a round at Plum Hollow with Jason and Keith, a couple of younger members enthusiastic about the historic Alison design.

(t)10. Walking Carmel Beach on Sunday of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. As a kid watching this event in the snow of a Michigan winter, I had always wanted to be one of those people in the CBS shots of the peripheral scenery. Being there, you don’t realize just how close you actually are to the action on the 9th and 10th holes.

(t)10. Rounds at Ojai and Rustic Canyon with Thad Layton. Always fun to tee it up with Thad; always fun to tee it up at Rustic Canyon.

H.M. Solitary walk around Aronimink. Another course where it was nice to look at different angles and yardages as well as roll balls around the greens to analyze contours.

Cool Curiosities, Awesome Oddities: The Most Enjoyable Unusual Features

This year’s list of curiosities and oddities isn't quite as curious and odd as last year, but that’s what happens when the previous year included a trip to Scotland, which is not only the Home of Golf but also the home of quirk. Nonetheless, there was still some enjoyable funk to be had, most of which was in the Philadelphia area.

*You usually only find tees this close to the green in the UK. 9 green and 10 tee at Merion West.*

1. 9-10 tee transition, Merion (West)

2. The first tee right off the dining porch, Merion (East)

3. The quarry, Merion (West)

*The barn is very much in play on the 10th at Tavistock.*

4. Skyscrapers over the course, LACC (South)

5. The Devil’s A***ole, Pine Valley

6. Tavistock Barn Hole, Tavistock

7. Short grass Lion’s Mouth, LACC (South)

8. Old Hospital in middle of Bala

9. Old watertower halfway house, Pine Valley

10. Blind shot stairs, Diablo Hills

H.M. Barn House, Aronimink; The birthplace of snowboarding, Tavistock

Best Restoration Opportunities

Because I can never just relax and play golf...

*MacKenzie’s landforms at Northwood are just sitting there waiting to be carved back out into bunkers.*

1. Cobb’s Creek. Cobb’s story is well known, but the land and site are much more impressive than I imagined. Hope Gil Hanse and the Friends of Cobb’s Creek can get going on realizing this great story soon.

2. Northwood. Everything is right there for the taking. With Alister MacKenzie’s bunker landforms and greens contours still existing, this would be one of the easiest, most inexpensive, and most impactful restorations that can be had.

(t)3. Ojai. This and La Cumbre would top the list if full restorations seemed possible. So much has shifted around at Ojai, and outside homes/structures have imposed upon a good number of holes at La Cumbre, including some of the more famous ones. The pictures of both courses in Thomas’s book Golf Architecture in America are incredible.

(t)3. La Cumbre. See Ojai above.

Above: It would take some major earthwork to get back the 16th hole at La Cumbre, and even still the upper left fairway is now occupied by private residences.

(t)5. Merion (West). There are some really neat old funky features seemingly still lingering from Hugh Wilson’s time. Would be cool to freshen them up and bring back anything that’s missing.

(t)5. Bala. This course is like any good William Flynn course but at a smaller scale. Again, this wouldn’t be a need for major work as the main features are already there. Trees are the biggest issue.

THE EVERYTHING ELSE

*These scenes were pretty nice to enjoy after a full day at Saticoy.*

Travel is a side benefit of this business, especially if you don't overdo it. Seeing the world opens you up to new things in all senses--sights, sounds, tastes--and the people you get to meet make it even more worthwhile. 2018 was a bit lighter in this category, as a lot of time was spent in familiar locales around California, and my big golf visit of the year was in Philadelphia, the home of my brother+sister in law and a city I’ve previously spent a lot of time in. Nonetheless, let’s talk a little about it anyway.

Note: a big trip to Spain was excised from all of this, for it was non-golf related and will be addressed in a completely separate blog post. Not surprisingly, it would have unfairly dominated most categories.

*We were lucky to stay 3 houses off this bike path in Newport Beach*

Favorite Cities

1. Ventura, CA. Most underrated city on the West Coast?

2. Philadelphia, PA

3. Newport Beach, CA

Favorite food by Place

Saticoy, CA - Chile Verde Burrito, Los Comales

Ventura (Pierpont), CA - Ribeye Green Curry, Lucky Thai Restaurant

Ventura (Downtown), CA - Lamb Madras, Himalaya Restaurant

Philadelphia, PA - WaWa custom flatbreads sure come in handy for a quick lunch in between seeing courses

Newport Beach, CA - Crab feast at the Crab Cooker

Favorite Sights Seen

Again, not a whole ton to go off here this year since I never left California for work, and my big study trip was in a city I’ve spent a ton of time in. I can’t complain though, as California in itself is quite spectacular.

1. Highway 101 from Monterey southward. I had not yet experienced this stretch of road, but I very much enjoyed it, especially in the late day spring light when first driving down to Ventura.

2. Ronald Reagan Museum. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, a visit to a Presidential museum is both interesting and inspiring. Also pretty cool to get to walk around on Air Force One.

3. Balboa Pier Neighborhood. Newport Beach, CA. A bit lost in time, Balboa is a nice divergence from the rest of newer, flashier Newport. Also, there is a preponderance of frozen banana stands, and as we all know, “there’s always money in the banana stand.”

MUSIC

While there was some really good stuff I discovered this year, it felt like a step back from 2017. That happens, especially as you have heard more music over time. The more you have heard, the more difficult it is to discover something new that really gets you excited. Derek Duncan likes to ask on his Feed The Ball podcast, “How do we next advance the medium of golf architecture?” That is kind of where I am at with music.

One interesting trend though has been emerging: my affinity with female lead vocals. 6 of my top 7 albums this year prominently or exclusively feature female lead vocalists, and I’ve been into the female-led bands Alvvays and Sunflower Bean over the past few years. I am not sure if this is an overall trend, a change in personal tastes, or simply anomalous. I’m betting on some combination of trend and tastes, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

Best Albums

1. Lost Friends - Middle Kids. This is their debut full-length album, and it is fantastic with nary a bad track. There’s nothing really that unique about their sound, but I really like it and the subtle elements you pick up from multiple plays. The songwriting is the highlight with the pace and feel of each track varying speed and intensity for a very complete overall album experience.

2. Hell On - Neko Case As music critic Jim DeRogatis summarized, “even ‘ok Neko’ is still very good Neko.” I probably wouldn’t put this album in the upper half of her works, but I still really loved it. I think her voice is the best in all of music—truly raw and powerful. One listen to her live performances makes that clear.

3. Offering - Cults. A solid-to-good album from them bookended by a pair killer tracks.

4. I Don’t Run - Hinds

5. The Long Goodbye - The Essex Green A much more “normal-sounding” member of the Elephant 6, The Essex Green is especially great to listen to in autumn. It’s easy going with a subtle twang to it. After first discovering them while building bunkers in Holland, I picked up two of their albums for my Philadelphia trip. They didn’t disappoint.

6. Ok Computer - Radiohead. After many years of putting off a full listen of this famous album, I finally picked it up with the hopes of having the transcendental experience so many others have. I thought it was good, but it didn’t knock me off my feet the same way my first real listen to Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” did 2 years ago. Perhaps that is just because so many elements of the album have been copied/utilized since. Or perhaps it is just like a great golf course that you don’t fully “get” the first few plays, and I need to continue listening further. We’ll see; look out for a possible retraction printed in a year’s time.

7. Hardly Electronic - The Essex Green

8. Marble Skies - Django Django

9. Hope Downs - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Fast, upbeat indie rock with a little surfer twang. Good for knocking out some bunkers quickly in a decidedly SoCal setting.

(t)10. Bloom - Beach House Gotta listen to some Beach House while living in a beach house.

(t)10. 7 - Beach House

H.M. Vide Noir - Lord Huron; Twentytwo in Blue - Sunflower Bean; Out of Time - R.E.M.; Freedom’s Goblin - Ty Segall; Fín - Bigott; Case/Lang/Veirs - Case/Lang/Veirs; Bottle it In - Kurt Vile

Best Songs

As with Pine Valley and Merion with the “Best Holes” section, I struggled not letting Middle Kids and Neko Case dominate this list. Oh well…

1. "Gilded Lily" - Cults

2. “Edge of Town” - Middle Kids

3. "Halls of Sarah" - Neko Case

4. "Offering" - Cults

5. "Don’t Be Hiding" - Middle Kids

6. "Mr. Tillman" - Father John Misty

7. "Winnie" - Neko Case

8. "Karma Police" - Radiohead

9. "Nostalgic Feel" - Bedroom

10. "Lost in Time and Space" - Lord Huron

11. "Sloane Ranger" - The Essex Green

12. "Pitch or Honey" - Neko Case

13. "Shiny Happy People" - R.E.M.

14. “Tinseltown Swimming in Blood” - Destroyer

15. "Talking Straight" - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

16. "New Birth in New England" - Phosphorescent

17. "My Lady’s on Fire" - Ty Segall

18. "Apocalypse” - Cigarettes after Sex

19. "Mistake" - Middle Kids

20. “One Trick Ponies” - Kurt Vile

H.M. "Other People" - Beach House, "Colors” - Beck, “Please” - Middle Kids, “Total Football” - Parquet Courts, “The Late Great Cassiopia” - The Essex Green, “Seven Wonders” - Fleetwood Mac, “Burn it Down” - Sunflower Bean

Best New Podcasts

Podcasts have started to dominate my headphones as time goes on. While I still love music, I’m feel like I am hitting a plateau as far as my discovery with it goes. Podcasts offer a chance to learn something new, get lost in a story, or just have feel like you have some company while working out on the far corner of the property.

As a lot of these are friends/social media friends, and I have contributed to one of them, I’ve listed this alphabetically instead of by ranking.

- Feed the Ball.

- Golf Guide Podcast.

- Golfer’s Journal Podcast

- iSeek Golf Podcast

- Sound Opinions

Also, I haven’t been able to listen to too much of Erik Anders Lang’s Podcast, but his episode with Sean Tully of the Meadow Club was fantastic. Hoping I can get into more of it in 2019.

Non-Golf Experiences of the Year

1. Spanish Adventure with the Wife. This is number one with a bullet. For the first time in a number of years, we took a trip that was entirely on our own and had nothing to do with a golf project. And it was good—really good. It was not just the sights (which were incredible) or the food (which was delicious) or the arts (which were inspiring)—it was just getting to disconnect from everything else for two weeks and spend time with each other. As life will surely only get more busy and crazy, this is an important lesson to keep in mind.

2. Showing my brother and his wife around NorCal. For a multitude of reasons, this was my brother’s first trip out to the Golden State. We made sure to make the most of it though, exploring San Francisco and our favorite spots, catching a Warriors playoff game at Stadium Pub in Walnut Creek, and heading up to the mountains, which was highlighted by a visit to Yosemite.

3. Sharing the Big House with California Friends. Having lived in California for over 8 years now, I’ve developed some really good friendships. Just through living here and working, I am pretty familiar with their upbringings and where they grew up. Nobody had seen where I grew up though. My one good friend is a Penn State business school alum and the other a Northwestern grad. As such, they were interested in seeing a game sometime at Michigan Stadium and suggested going to this year’s tilt against Penn State. After first visiting my parents and driving around my native area, which was full of late peak fall color, we made a full weekend of it in Ann Arbor. The game didn’t go so great for them, but it was really special to share that experience and play tour guide for a place I once called home.

hochstein-design-best-of-2018-michigan-stadium

4. Welcoming a new niece and a newly expected nephew. I have officially entered into the uncharted waters of being an uncle, first with my brother and sister-in-law and next year with my own brother. These are certainly exciting times; I’m really looking forward to teaching them the value of playing the ball along the ground.

(t)5. Weddings. Only two this year (and both in NorCal!), but it’s always exciting to see your good friends get married. Both also happened to be at golf courses too, the first at The Bridges in San Ramon and the second at Tehama—two courses that make for a very pretty wedding backdrop but would also eat your lunch playing if your long game wasn’t sharp.

(t)5. Michigan’s surprise Final Four run. The first 12 or so years of my Michigan basketball fandom was not very fun at all. John Beilein has undoubtedly rectified this. Early in last year’s season though, the team squeaked out a come-from-behind OT win at home over an unranked UCLA team. At the time this felt like what they needed to eventually snag a 10 or 11 seed in the Tournament. Starting in early February though, the defense really clicked, and the team went on an absolute tear, winning the Big 10 Tournament (again) and making it all the way to the National Championship Game, where they fizzled out with poor shooting. I still regret not making it to either L.A. or San Antonio for one of the games, but who knows, maybe there will be another opportunity this year…

H.M. Watching U.S. Men’s Curling win gold in the wee hours. Never thought I would see it happen, but they did it, curling like a team on an absolute mission, which they were.

A Word of Thanks, and On to 2019...

Another good year getting to do what I love calls for another heap of thanks.

Thank you to everyone that accommodated me in my visits to your courses, especially those who took time to discuss them and architecture in general. The golf industry is a special group, and I always enjoy new encounters.

Thank you to everyone I worked with this year. I can luckily say it was a real pleasure on every job, big and small.

And lastly, thank you to the friends and family who help support this craziness, especially my fun-loving wife, who kills it in a job she works remotely and travels with me whenever she can. That effort and sacrifice makes all of this possible.

On to 2019, where we already have some exciting work lined up and will continue pushing Hochstein Design to the next level.

Thanks for reading, and cheers,

Brett