Wednesday Chip Shots

Each Wednesday, I'll post a few quick points from the week in golf architecture.

• Mike Cirba started a good thread on Golf Club Atlas about ground level tee boxes and their seeming fall into obscurity. While not reaching pandemic levels, it seems more and more the golf is hoisted on a pedestal for each hole. Thread can be read here.
  
• Something I would have posted awhile ago, but Ian Andrew compiled a subjective, but very comprehensive ranking of deceased golf architects. His list, like all lists, stand some scrutiny but the discussion wrought as a result is interesting. He presented the list in a series of posts on his blog.
• Perhaps out of the general ennui brought about by playing Florida golf over the summer, I've been doing a lot of sketches lately. While not terribly practical in terms of building a golf course, I feel that sketching rough concepts can help apply certain strategies in the field, especially given the correct land form. I will post some of these sketches later in the week.
• In conjunction with my roundtable discussion threads on Golf Club Atlas (first two weeks found here and here) I will post the questions for discussion here each Sunday with my responses. As these threads seem to inspire some spin-off threads, I am going to continue with a weekly five question format. Any general topics for questions would be more than welcome.
• The Castle Stuart construction videos on YouTube provide a very interesting and informative insight into some of the niches of golf course construction. Kudos to all involved with their production and to Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner for a peek into their world. Embedded below is the video on bunker construction and the "chunking" process:

Additionally, I've discovered through Ryan that Google's news aggregator hits on this Blog, as one of his criteria is "Doak," and yesterday's post came up. Yes, in some ways I'm doing this to see if he's still paying attention, but it's nice to know that a few buzzwords may generate some traffic.

Change Afoot

So I've neglected this for far too long.

With my recent career happenings, I've been given a bit more time to keep things current and that's going to be the plan. Ideally, and concurrent with my participation in Golf Club Atlas's discussion group, I can offer some good content a few times per week.

I've also decided that the addition of another author will help keep the content fresh. I've asked Golf Architect student Ryan Farrow to contribute as often as he can. Ryan is a fellow participant in the GCA Discussion Group, a Landscape Architecture student at Arizona State, and recently completed an internship with Tom Doak on a project in Montana. Ryan has taken it upon himself to complement his landscape architecture education by seeking out some of the finest golf courses on the west coast, including Riviera and Los Angelos Country Club. A fellow Pennsylvania, Ryan hails from the Pittsburgh area and worked on the grounds staff at Oakmont Country Club during the summer of 2006.

I welcome Ryan's insight to the forum and hope we can keep things going in this "take 2" for "On Golf Architecture."