Latest / Designing Golf / The 10 Golf Architecture Books Everyone Should Read

Transcript

The 10 Golf Architecture Books Everyone Should Read · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: So the single most frequent question I'm asked is something
0:02
Speaker 1: along the lines of which courses should I play in
0:06
Speaker 1: city or region X. The second most frequent question comes
0:10
Speaker 1: from people who are just getting into golf architecture, and
0:13
Speaker 1: that is which book should I read? That's what we're
0:16
Speaker 1: talking about today with Stephen Procter. Stephen is a writer
0:19
Speaker 1: and historian, the author of two books of his own,
0:22
Speaker 1: and the co host of the podcast The Duffer's Literary Companion.
0:26
Speaker 1: And in this episode, Stephen is going to help me
0:28
Speaker 1: construct a list of ten golf architecture books everyone should read.
0:33
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing Golf. So Stephen,
0:43
Speaker 1: do you have an organizational system for your golf books.
0:46
Speaker 1: I know you have a lot of books, so you
0:48
Speaker 1: must have to have some way of organizing them.
0:51
Speaker 2: Yes.
0:52
Speaker 3: I have around three hundred books about golf, so they
0:57
Speaker 3: are organized by a topic. So I have golf architecture
1:03
Speaker 3: in Agronomy would be in one section, golf club histories,
1:07
Speaker 3: general history, memoir, biography, so organized in that way. I
1:15
Speaker 3: had to do it because I got you know, I
1:18
Speaker 3: had them just on shelves around where I work, and
1:20
Speaker 3: it there got to be too many of them, and
1:23
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I was wasting a lot of time trying
1:25
Speaker 3: to find the book I was looking for, and so
1:28
Speaker 3: I ended up having one day to get them all
1:31
Speaker 3: out on the floor and put them into categories. And unfortunately,
1:37
Speaker 3: my daughter walked in at that very moment when I
1:39
Speaker 3: had all the books stacked in the piles Architecture over here,
1:42
Speaker 3: history over there. And I am always complaining to her
1:46
Speaker 3: about the number of shoes that she owns and buys,
1:48
Speaker 3: and she looked around and.
1:49
Speaker 2: Said, are all these golf books?
1:51
Speaker 3: And I had to sheepishly say yes. He said, well,
1:53
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear another word about shoes. So
1:57
Speaker 3: my obsession for golf books is probably worse than hers
1:59
Speaker 3: for use, which is something.
2:01
Speaker 1: Shoes are at least a necessary piece of clothing.
2:04
Speaker 2: Yes, whereas golf books are not.
2:06
Speaker 1: No, not really, we don't need them to keep us warm. Yeah,
2:10
Speaker 1: I need to. I need to get some kind of
2:11
Speaker 1: organizational system going myself, because I was looking for some
2:15
Speaker 1: books that we're going to talk about today, uh in
2:17
Speaker 1: in my own bookshelves, and they're they're hither and yon
2:20
Speaker 1: and so. Uh So, maybe this.
2:22
Speaker 2: Is become a necessity once you get a certain number.
2:25
Speaker 3: It really it really helps to facilitate finding them because
2:28
Speaker 3: they you know, it just gets to be a mess.
2:32
Speaker 1: I might need subtopics within golf architecture at this point,
2:35
Speaker 1: which which may indicate that that I have a problem
2:38
Speaker 1: and perhaps should should start donating some books that I
2:41
Speaker 1: that I don't use as often or don't don't need.
2:43
Speaker 3: To well, or a specialty I think you guys have done.
2:46
Speaker 3: You know that's interesting to me to just the golf
2:49
Speaker 3: architecture community is one of the bigger consumers of books
2:53
Speaker 3: about the history of the game because of the connection
2:57
Speaker 3: to golf history, golf archete. She goes back into the
3:01
Speaker 3: history of the game, and they're sort of intertwined in
3:02
Speaker 3: a way. So I admire the Fried Egg a lot
3:07
Speaker 3: for the specialty that it's focused in on meaningful architecture,
3:10
Speaker 3: and I think that draws a pretty big community that
3:13
Speaker 3: has a lot of broad interests. So it's good to
3:16
Speaker 3: have all those books. You just got to subcategorize.
3:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you for the kind words. And I
3:21
Speaker 1: think it's true that golf architecture enthusiasm is sort of
3:26
Speaker 1: a scholarly interest, or can be at least, and people
3:31
Speaker 1: who are interested in it often are readers. And that's
3:35
Speaker 1: I think why I get that question so often, which
3:38
Speaker 1: books should I read? Because the people who start to
3:40
Speaker 1: get interested in golf architecture might tend to be people
3:44
Speaker 1: who pursue their interests by reading, which is a lot
3:47
Speaker 1: of fun for me.
3:47
Speaker 3: True generally, actually, Garrett, I think that's true of golf generally,
3:51
Speaker 3: not so much at the professional level. Ofviously, I don't
3:53
Speaker 3: think many professional golfers are big readers of books, but
3:56
Speaker 3: I think a lot of high end club golfers to
4:00
Speaker 3: and to be people who have been successful in life.
4:02
Speaker 3: And most people who have been successful in things have
4:07
Speaker 3: as one of their habits reading, and so there are
4:11
Speaker 3: just a lot of overlaps. And that's one of the
4:13
Speaker 3: reasons that golf has had such a great literature I
4:16
Speaker 3: think all through time, is that it's attracted the type
4:19
Speaker 3: of people who like to read, who think about things
4:21
Speaker 3: deeply as a rule, and so at least there's a
4:25
Speaker 3: strong portion of those in golf, maybe comparatively speaking to
4:29
Speaker 3: say football or rugby or games like that.
4:33
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into it. I asked you to bring
4:36
Speaker 1: a list of golf architecture books that you think people
4:39
Speaker 1: should read I brought a list of my own, and
4:41
Speaker 1: the plan is just to kind of go back and
4:43
Speaker 1: forth and share books as we go along. Our lists
4:46
Speaker 1: will certainly share certain titles, and so once one of
4:50
Speaker 1: us takes a title, then we can kind of move
4:52
Speaker 1: on to the next one on our list, and then
4:53
Speaker 1: at the end we can talk about a few honorable mentions.
4:56
Speaker 1: But the main goal here is to get an initial
4:59
Speaker 1: list of ten books that people could read, you know,
5:02
Speaker 1: maybe in some approximate order, I don't know, that would
5:06
Speaker 1: introduce them to the subject in a compelling ways. So
5:11
Speaker 1: what is your first book on your list.
5:14
Speaker 3: I'm a person that likes to start at the beginning, Garrett,
5:17
Speaker 3: as I think you know from talking to me in
5:18
Speaker 3: the past, and I was tempted to mention Badminton golf
5:23
Speaker 3: and the essays in there, some celebrated links, which are
5:26
Speaker 3: some of the very first writing about golf courses that
5:29
Speaker 3: was done in eighteen ninety by Horace Hutcheon Hinson. But
5:32
Speaker 3: I'm going to mention the book that was inspired by
5:35
Speaker 3: those pieces and by Hutchinson's Horrace Hutchinson's other book, Famous
5:39
Speaker 3: Golf Links from eighteen ninety five, and that's Bernard Darwin's
5:42
Speaker 3: Golf Courses of the British Isles, which came out in
5:45
Speaker 3: nineteen ten and also has these amazing watercolor illustrations by
5:50
Speaker 3: Harry Rountree. And this is, you know, I think, one
5:53
Speaker 3: of the first truly great golf books period, but is
5:58
Speaker 3: definitely in a lot of ways the beginning of serious
6:01
Speaker 3: writing about golf courses themselves. And so you know, obviously
6:07
Speaker 3: there have been other books had come out about golf
6:09
Speaker 3: architecture nineteen oh three concerning golf, but this was one
6:12
Speaker 3: of the most widely popular, widely read books. And of
6:15
Speaker 3: course it's gorgeous writing, and Darwin is an interesting thinker
6:20
Speaker 3: about the architecture of courses and blind holes and all
6:24
Speaker 3: kinds of other things that will become big topics of
6:26
Speaker 3: discussion as architecture moves along.
6:29
Speaker 2: So that's my first choice.
6:31
Speaker 1: I think it has the it has an argument for
6:34
Speaker 1: being the greatest golf book of all time.
6:37
Speaker 2: It's something would be my choice.
6:39
Speaker 3: The greatest golf book of all time is that book,
6:42
Speaker 3: I think it. You know, it also really established Darwin,
6:46
Speaker 3: you know, he had only begun writing for The Times
6:49
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh eight, I believe was the first open
6:52
Speaker 3: championship he covered with James Braid winning, and so this
6:56
Speaker 3: is two years later he comes out with this book,
6:59
Speaker 3: and I think it definitely helped to establish his reputation
7:04
Speaker 3: as somebody who was now I think widely considered the
7:08
Speaker 3: greatest golf writer of all time. So it has that
7:11
Speaker 3: going for it, but it has a lot of serious
7:13
Speaker 3: thought about golf course design in it in his incredibly amusing, entertaining,
7:20
Speaker 3: super fun sort of way.
7:22
Speaker 1: I believe it was published in nineteen ten, yes, if
7:26
Speaker 1: I'm remembering that correctly or around that, it was before
7:30
Speaker 1: World War One broke out, and Darwin was very up
7:35
Speaker 1: to date with the latest thinking in golf architecture. I
7:37
Speaker 1: think that's part of what makes him such a compelling
7:39
Speaker 1: writer about these great golf courses. His book is kind
7:43
Speaker 1: of part of an early genre of golf course writing
7:46
Speaker 1: that provides a survey of the great British links. This
7:49
Speaker 1: was something that Horace Hutchinson did author you mentioned before,
7:53
Speaker 1: as well as various other writers like Henry Leach, et cetera.
7:56
Speaker 1: But this is certainly the best and the richest of
8:00
Speaker 1: those books, partly because he is he was such an
8:05
Speaker 1: up to date and deep thinker about golf architecture. So
8:08
Speaker 1: I think that's it's a wonderful place to start. Now, Yes,
8:12
Speaker 1: a lot of these a lot of these writers were
8:14
Speaker 1: very good players, which which puts me to shame in
8:17
Speaker 1: my twenty first century abilities. But in any case, great
8:22
Speaker 1: first pick, my first pick. I've gone maybe slightly. The
8:25
Speaker 1: way I've ordered my list is kind of how I
8:28
Speaker 1: would maybe suggest that people read the books in order,
8:32
Speaker 1: you know, what they might want to read first as
8:34
Speaker 1: an introduction, and then you know, getting a little deeper
8:38
Speaker 1: and deeper as you go along. My first pick would
8:41
Speaker 1: be the World Atlas.
8:42
Speaker 2: Of Golf, actually wonderful book.
8:45
Speaker 1: Specifically, yeah, wonderful book, and specifically an edition that has
8:50
Speaker 1: a green cover, maybe a white cover, one of these
8:52
Speaker 1: editions from the nineteen seventies or eighties. My copy is
8:56
Speaker 1: actually the New World Atlas of Golf, but very similar
8:58
Speaker 1: to the first one that came out. And this was
9:01
Speaker 1: edited by Pat Ward Thomas, a wonderful, towering, really golf
9:06
Speaker 1: writer in his own right, and has contributions from Herbert
9:09
Speaker 1: Ward Wind, Herbert Warren Wind, Charles Price, Peter Thompson. So
9:13
Speaker 1: you know, a murderer's row of great golf course writers
9:16
Speaker 1: and thinkers, And in addition to that wonderful writing, this
9:21
Speaker 1: book has great visuals, maps of great courses. It has
9:25
Speaker 1: introductory material about golf architecture. It introduces you to the
9:29
Speaker 1: to the notions of penal and strategic design in a
9:32
Speaker 1: very clear and visually forward way, and it gives you
9:36
Speaker 1: an idea of what the great golf courses are. Now.
9:39
Speaker 1: If you get one of these older editions, it will
9:41
Speaker 1: be a little bit dated in some respects. A lot
9:43
Speaker 1: of the photography is certainly very dated, and the courses
9:46
Speaker 1: look dated because courses were presented differently in the seventies
9:50
Speaker 1: than they are now. But in every other respect this
9:55
Speaker 1: book is completely contemporary and relevant, and I think still
10:00
Speaker 1: a great way to introduce yourself or to get somebody
10:04
Speaker 1: young introduced to golf architecture and golf courses.
10:08
Speaker 3: I agree with you completely, Garrett, and I once had
10:10
Speaker 3: the pleasure of doing a podcast about that specific book,
10:14
Speaker 3: UH with some some afsies, and it.
10:18
Speaker 1: Was with Derek Duncan and Rod Moray. Wright was on
10:22
Speaker 1: that pod. I'm not sure if Derek was, but Rod Moray.
10:25
Speaker 3: Was, Yeah, Rod Mourray's podcast and Adrian Logue was on
10:29
Speaker 3: it with us and they it was clear to me
10:33
Speaker 3: from their reaction, from subsequent reactions to that podcast for
10:37
Speaker 3: that for an awful lot of people, this was the
10:39
Speaker 3: book that got them going down the pathway to studying
10:43
Speaker 3: golf architecture. And uh, I'm pretty sure that's true of
10:47
Speaker 3: Ran Morrisset, who does the wonderful website.
10:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:51
Speaker 3: And so I think that's a great choice. And you know,
10:55
Speaker 3: I liked your idea, Garrett, of Let's books in the
10:59
Speaker 3: order you might want to read them. So I'm going
11:01
Speaker 3: to suggest another early work that I think is very
11:05
Speaker 3: much as a great starting place for a couple of
11:07
Speaker 3: reasons i'll articulate, and that is The Architectural Side of
11:11
Speaker 3: Golf by Herbert Newton, whether it and Tom Simpson, and so,
11:15
Speaker 3: you know, right around the turn of the century, you know,
11:20
Speaker 3: the idea of strategic architecture begins to take root and
11:26
Speaker 3: to become what we will think of as the Golden
11:30
Speaker 3: Age of golf course architecture. And I think from my
11:33
Speaker 3: readings about it, and I did a fair amount of
11:35
Speaker 3: reading about it in preparation for my second book, The
11:38
Speaker 3: Long Golden Afternoon, I think Tom Simpson is one of
11:42
Speaker 3: the leading intellectual figures of that entire movement. He's just
11:47
Speaker 3: a flamboyant person, a brilliant writer, and a lot of
11:50
Speaker 3: his writing for Lonsdale Library's book The Game of Golf
11:54
Speaker 3: and some others are really some of the most cogent
11:57
Speaker 3: things that I've read about strategic architecture and how it
12:00
Speaker 3: should be thought of unconceived, and this book is exactly
12:04
Speaker 3: like that. And Herbert Newton weather It who's also happens
12:07
Speaker 3: to be the father of Joyce Weathered, the greatest perhaps
12:10
Speaker 3: certainly the greatest woman golfer ever, and maybe the greatest
12:13
Speaker 3: golfer ever. And Roger Weatherd who won the Amateur championship
12:16
Speaker 3: himself in nineteen twenty three. In any case, so he's
12:19
Speaker 3: a very interesting, articulate man himself, and he's writing the
12:23
Speaker 3: bulk of this book. But the thing that elevates it
12:26
Speaker 3: to a different level for me is the sketches in
12:28
Speaker 3: the book by Tom Simpson, because there's.
12:31
Speaker 1: Amazing they are.
12:32
Speaker 3: He's an unbelievable artist to start with, and one of
12:35
Speaker 3: the little pathways you can go down and studying golf
12:37
Speaker 3: architecture is the art of the sketch itself, or of
12:40
Speaker 3: Harry Rountree or whatever, and Simpson is just an exquisite artist.
12:46
Speaker 3: But you could just look at the drawings in the
12:49
Speaker 3: book and get an incredible education about strategic golf course
12:53
Speaker 3: architecture strictly from those visuals in the words themselves add
12:57
Speaker 3: quite a great dimension to it. So I think of
13:00
Speaker 3: it as a great place to begin In that way,
13:03
Speaker 3: I'll call reader's attention to I think it's plate thirty
13:05
Speaker 3: two and thirty three, but it's two plates together that
13:08
Speaker 3: are one of the most insipid Victorian nine hole course
13:12
Speaker 3: you could ever conceive, And the facing plate is how
13:16
Speaker 3: Simpson reimagines it as a work of strategic brilliance. Now
13:22
Speaker 3: there's two aspects to that. One is just the simple
13:25
Speaker 3: creativity that Simpson displays and reimagining and rearranging the holes.
13:30
Speaker 3: But there is a feed of engineering that's involved, which
13:33
Speaker 3: is to take this rather straightforward creek that runs through
13:37
Speaker 3: the property and give it a few twists and turns
13:41
Speaker 3: that make it play kind of a devilish role on
13:44
Speaker 3: a certain number of the nine holes. And so you
13:47
Speaker 3: could spend a long time just studying those two pages
13:50
Speaker 3: and you would learn an awful lot about great golf
13:53
Speaker 3: course design and the process.
13:54
Speaker 2: So that's choice number two for me.
13:57
Speaker 1: Great book and maybe my favorite of the nineteen twenties
14:00
Speaker 1: golf architecture books, of which there are some very very
14:04
Speaker 1: good ones, but that might be the one that I
14:06
Speaker 1: returned to the most often, partly because of the writing.
14:10
Speaker 1: Tom Simpson is one of the best thinkers about golf
14:13
Speaker 1: architecture ever and whether it was no slouch himself. I'd
14:15
Speaker 1: also recommend whether it's book The Perfect Golfer.
14:19
Speaker 2: Yes, that one.
14:19
Speaker 3: It's been very much on my mind because honestly, that
14:22
Speaker 3: book was written in nineteen thirty one, and it was
14:25
Speaker 3: written for two reasons. One is that Bobby Jones had
14:30
Speaker 3: won the Grand Slam, but more importantly than that, he'd
14:33
Speaker 3: gone around Sunningdale in a qualifying round in thirty three
14:37
Speaker 3: shots and thirty three putts, and it was just like
14:40
Speaker 3: the most mechanical exhibition of perfection that the game had
14:44
Speaker 3: perhaps ever seen. And then Joyce weathered during the nineteen
14:49
Speaker 3: late nineteen twenties is achieving a level of perfection with
14:53
Speaker 3: the golf swing and a level of majesty over the
14:59
Speaker 3: game that is, you know, very few people have ever achieved.
15:04
Speaker 3: And so I've been spending a lot of time with
15:07
Speaker 3: her career and that that particular book, and it's he's
15:11
Speaker 3: just a fascinating man. Whether it's a great book. So
15:13
Speaker 3: I highly recommend that separated apart from architecture. It's got
15:16
Speaker 3: sure to do with architecture, but it's a great book.
15:18
Speaker 1: It's got interesting things to say about links golf. I mean,
15:20
Speaker 1: some of my favorite writing about the essence of links
15:23
Speaker 1: golf is in that book. But you're right that it's
15:25
Speaker 1: not focused on the subject of architecture.
15:27
Speaker 3: They wanted Joyce to write it, but she was too modestly,
15:31
Speaker 3: she wouldn't do it.
15:32
Speaker 2: She was approached, sure, she.
15:33
Speaker 3: Said, I'm not going to pass myself off as flawless.
15:36
Speaker 1: So she didn't want to write about have a book
15:38
Speaker 1: called the Perfect Golfer. Then, yeah, understandable. A book that
15:43
Speaker 1: is all about golf architecture that I would recommend as
15:47
Speaker 1: a staple of any golf architecture library is, of course,
15:51
Speaker 1: Alistair Mackenzie's book simply called Golf Architecture. This was published
15:55
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty. Now many would name The Spirit of
15:59
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew as the Mackenzie book here, and obviously that
16:05
Speaker 1: is a wonderful and very influential book. But I think
16:08
Speaker 1: Spirit is best understood as an expanded edition of Golf Architecture.
16:13
Speaker 1: It shares a lot of material with Golf Architecture and
16:18
Speaker 1: Spirit of Saint Andrews was never published during Mackenzie's lifetime.
16:21
Speaker 1: It was published in the nineteen nineties. It sort of
16:23
Speaker 1: floated around as a manuscript for decades, and then a
16:28
Speaker 1: press in Michigan called Sleeping Bear Press just decided to
16:30
Speaker 1: publish it and it suddenly became an unexpected bestseller. So
16:37
Speaker 1: great book, but Golf Architecture is kind of a condensed
16:40
Speaker 1: version of it, and it has a lot of the
16:42
Speaker 1: stuff that people cite from Spirit of Saint Andrews anyway,
16:46
Speaker 1: and it's very easy to read. Full of Mackenzie's personality.
16:51
Speaker 1: This was the book that he brought from club to
16:53
Speaker 1: club and kind of dropped off boxes of it to
16:56
Speaker 1: try to educate people about golf architecture. It was really
17:00
Speaker 1: his calling card, and I think to this day it
17:03
Speaker 1: does remain the best short, single volume introduction to the
17:09
Speaker 1: theory and practice of golf architecture. It is a really
17:12
Speaker 1: really strong starting point. So that would be my recommendation there.
17:15
Speaker 1: Golf Architecture by Mackenzie.
17:18
Speaker 3: That's a wonderful choice. You know that the rules that
17:21
Speaker 3: he includes in that book, I think are so wise,
17:24
Speaker 3: and I particularly love the one that a great course
17:27
Speaker 3: is distinguished by the complete absence of having to.
17:30
Speaker 2: Search for your ball.
17:32
Speaker 3: And I think anybody who watches the Masters, you know,
17:35
Speaker 3: nobody's ever looking for a ball.
17:37
Speaker 2: At the Masters.
17:38
Speaker 3: They're often playing from an awkward position and you know,
17:42
Speaker 3: in a dangerous spot where something terrible could happen, but
17:45
Speaker 3: they can see the ball at every moment. And I
17:48
Speaker 3: think one of the agonies of playing golf, and particularly
17:51
Speaker 3: here in the wilds of Florida, where there's so many
17:54
Speaker 3: irretrievable spots, is the anguish of constantly looking for your ball.
18:00
Speaker 3: So I love that that book is a classic. And
18:03
Speaker 3: the great thing about it, too, Garrett, is it's pretty
18:05
Speaker 3: widely accessible because it is one of the books in
18:07
Speaker 3: the Classics of Golf Library, so a lot of those
18:10
Speaker 3: reprints are available easily online. Some of these books can
18:13
Speaker 3: be difficult to find, So I really love that choice.
18:19
Speaker 3: I'm gonna, you know, go with one from America now,
18:22
Speaker 3: which I think of all the books I've read on
18:25
Speaker 3: golf architecture, I think the smartest one i've ever read
18:29
Speaker 3: is Golf Architecture in America by George Thomas, who created
18:33
Speaker 3: the great Los Angeles courses, and he's just.
18:37
Speaker 2: A brilliant man.
18:39
Speaker 3: And I think the entire book is really a brilliant
18:43
Speaker 3: summation of the whole strategic comparative and why it makes
18:46
Speaker 3: golf interesting. And it also has the advantage point of
18:50
Speaker 3: being from the nation that had by then, as Darwin
18:54
Speaker 3: put it, assembled it's great golfing empire and was really
18:57
Speaker 3: sort of taking over the game, and many mentions for
19:01
Speaker 3: good or ill. And so I think of Thomas as
19:05
Speaker 3: one of the first books you ought to read about
19:07
Speaker 3: golf architecture once you've I agree with you Garrett that
19:10
Speaker 3: you know at Mackenzie's probably a very great place to start.
19:14
Speaker 3: But once you start to get the principles and you
19:16
Speaker 3: have the fundamental ideas down, which is what golf architecture
19:19
Speaker 3: does for you, a book like this Thomas gives you,
19:23
Speaker 3: I think, a much.
19:24
Speaker 2: It's almost like taking a.
19:25
Speaker 3: Master's course on golf architecture after you've done your introductory
19:30
Speaker 3: and I really think of it as a genius book.
19:33
Speaker 1: Yes, Golf Architecture by Mackenzie is certainly a one oh
19:36
Speaker 1: one introduction maybe the best one ever done. And then
19:40
Speaker 1: Golf Architecture in America certainly elaborates on those ideas, goes deeper.
19:46
Speaker 1: It is not always what I would call an easy read,
19:50
Speaker 1: but if you actually pay attention to what Thomas is saying,
19:53
Speaker 1: it's so consistently smart.
19:55
Speaker 3: Exactly, and I think Garrett a lot of the great
19:58
Speaker 3: books about golf Arnold Holt as the mystery of golf
20:01
Speaker 3: reward being read slowly and absorbed, and this is one
20:06
Speaker 3: of those books. I when I read it, I committed
20:08
Speaker 3: myself to one chapter at a time, just read one
20:11
Speaker 3: chapter at a time, stop and think about what the
20:13
Speaker 3: chapter had to say. And that's the way you often
20:16
Speaker 3: want to read a book like this one, because it's
20:19
Speaker 3: just a lifetime of wisdom condensed into a couple hundred pages,
20:23
Speaker 3: and it tends to be very thick with knowledge, and
20:27
Speaker 3: so it does reward slow reading.
20:31
Speaker 1: Also has wonderful illustrations, like the Simpson book. The illustrations
20:35
Speaker 1: that George Thomas does and Golf Architecture in America are
20:39
Speaker 1: sort of worth the price of admission, very imaginative and
20:42
Speaker 1: have actually inspired architects in their own right, many of them.
20:46
Speaker 1: Many of these plans were never built. But you hear
20:49
Speaker 1: architects talk about being inspired by the illustrations and golf
20:53
Speaker 1: architecture in America pretty frequently, which I think is amazing.
20:57
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to go modern here with The Anatomy
21:01
Speaker 1: of a Golf Course by Tom Doak. I think this
21:05
Speaker 1: is probably the best modern introduction to the contemporary practice
21:11
Speaker 1: of golf architecture. Most of the books that we've talked
21:13
Speaker 1: about so far were written in the nineteen twenties, and
21:16
Speaker 1: there are parts of them that discuss golf architecture and
21:21
Speaker 1: agronomy as it was practiced in the nineteen twenties, obviously,
21:25
Speaker 1: and so they can sometimes seem a little bit foreign
21:28
Speaker 1: to the science and the concerns of today now. I
21:33
Speaker 1: don't want to pretend that those books are irrelevant to
21:36
Speaker 1: what we do now, because there's wonderful relevancy of you know,
21:40
Speaker 1: golf Architecture in American Golf Architecture by Mackenzie to how
21:44
Speaker 1: golf architecture is done now. But Tom Doak's book he
21:48
Speaker 1: wrote in the nineteen nineties, and so it's very up
21:51
Speaker 1: to date. I don't think there's any practicing architect who
21:54
Speaker 1: writes as well or anywhere near as much as Tom Doak,
21:59
Speaker 1: And in this way, he is sort of a throwback
22:01
Speaker 1: to the golden age of golf course design, when writing
22:05
Speaker 1: was a primary way for architects to communicate their ideas.
22:09
Speaker 1: And Doak is a good writer. He is clear, he
22:13
Speaker 1: is engaging, he's original, opinionated, interesting to converse with in
22:19
Speaker 1: the in the reading process, He's somebody that is highly
22:22
Speaker 1: interesting to have a conversation with, and that comes through
22:26
Speaker 1: in his writing. And so The Anatomy of a Golf
22:28
Speaker 1: Course is something that I would certainly recommend to people
22:31
Speaker 1: who maybe at first might be intimidated by reading something
22:35
Speaker 1: that's one hundred years old. Go to the Anatomy of
22:37
Speaker 1: a Golf Course. This is an up to date guide
22:40
Speaker 1: to golf course design.
22:42
Speaker 3: I think the analogy is a great one, Garrett, and
22:45
Speaker 3: I have the highest possible regard for Tom Doak, because
22:47
Speaker 3: he just as clearly comes across to you as a
22:50
Speaker 3: person who has made a very deep intellectual study of
22:54
Speaker 3: golf architecture from an early age, including going around the
22:58
Speaker 3: entire world to see what there is and to understand it.
23:01
Speaker 3: And you have to have respect for a person who's
23:04
Speaker 3: gathered that much seminal knowledge of their own. And of
23:07
Speaker 3: course I'm not recommending this necessarily, but his book The
23:11
Speaker 3: Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, I think has probably been
23:14
Speaker 3: the most influential book on golf course reviewing ever written.
23:18
Speaker 3: In addition to the one you mentioned and that was
23:20
Speaker 3: on my list, also The Anatomy of a Golf Course.
23:23
Speaker 3: For the exact reasons that you articulated is that it
23:25
Speaker 3: is the modern version of Mackenzie's nineteen twenty toe and
23:29
Speaker 3: so they're kind of interesting to read them maybe back
23:32
Speaker 3: to back as a project and see, you know how
23:35
Speaker 3: ideas evolve over time. So I think what I'm going
23:38
Speaker 3: to do now is there's a couple of others. I'm
23:40
Speaker 3: going to pick one more classic, and then my last
23:43
Speaker 3: choice will be a modern one, The Links by Robert Hunter.
23:47
Speaker 3: There's two reasons that The Links by Robert Hunter is
23:50
Speaker 3: also a great, you know, study writer about strategic golf archetry.
23:56
Speaker 3: He was a person who traveled over to Britain to
23:59
Speaker 3: map out out these holes that would become template holes,
24:03
Speaker 3: and in the course of it he would meet a
24:07
Speaker 3: lot of the great British players and then leaving a side.
24:10
Speaker 3: It's brilliant has a book about golf architecture. It also
24:13
Speaker 3: has on page eight and so that's how much I've
24:16
Speaker 3: read this. The greatest John Ball story ever told. He
24:21
Speaker 3: goes to Hoylake to study the holes of Hoylake and
24:23
Speaker 3: he ends up playing a match against John Ball, and
24:26
Speaker 3: John Ball he doesn't know this, but Joel in his
24:29
Speaker 3: old age, Ball's favorite chick was to put himself an
24:32
Speaker 3: impossible trouble and then ask the guy he's playing can
24:35
Speaker 3: I have a half? And they would of course deny him.
24:39
Speaker 3: And five times has happened during the round with Robert Hunter,
24:42
Speaker 3: and five times he denied the half to Ball, even
24:47
Speaker 3: after promising that he would. In all five times, Ball
24:49
Speaker 3: not only didn't have the hole, he won the hole
24:52
Speaker 3: from these ridiculous places. And that was the only joy
24:55
Speaker 3: he could get out of call late in life was
24:57
Speaker 3: pulling that trick on people's.
25:00
Speaker 2: Wonderful tale in the book. But he's very very smart man.
25:03
Speaker 3: Also, I think like George Thomas, and there's just a
25:05
Speaker 3: lot of brilliant thoughts in the book. So those two
25:08
Speaker 3: are my favorite American books of golf architecture writing, Thomas
25:13
Speaker 3: and Hunter.
25:15
Speaker 1: I find Hunter to be a very lively writer as well,
25:19
Speaker 1: he wrote about subjects other than golf. He was a
25:23
Speaker 1: socialist and wrote books about that subject as well. A
25:27
Speaker 1: fascinating person and people should know an associate of Alistair McKenzie's.
25:32
Speaker 1: He was kind of Alistair mackenzie's West Coast associate played
25:36
Speaker 1: a key role in designing Cyprus Point and the other
25:40
Speaker 1: great courses that mackenzie did in California. And so he
25:44
Speaker 1: comes at it from the kind of mackenzie camp perspective,
25:48
Speaker 1: but puts a new spin on it. And the Links
25:50
Speaker 1: is just a wonderful book to read. Sometimes. It's the
25:52
Speaker 1: first one that I recommend after McKenzie's Golf Architecture, because
25:58
Speaker 1: it is a relatively accessible exploration of the principles of
26:02
Speaker 1: golf course design.
26:04
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a wonderful, wonderful book. Can you're right.
26:06
Speaker 3: He's just a very lively writer and a fascinating human being. Yeah,
26:09
Speaker 3: here's a rabbit hole you could jump down the life
26:11
Speaker 3: of Robert Hunter.
26:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Hey, I wanted to jump in here real quick
26:20
Speaker 1: and talk about Club TFE. CLUBTFE is Frida Egg Golf's membership.
26:25
Speaker 1: You can find out more at the Frida Egg dot
26:27
Speaker 1: com slash membership, but specifically relevant to this episode of
26:31
Speaker 1: Designing Golf. Stephen Procter and I are going to record
26:35
Speaker 1: a quick CLUBTFE extra after we're done here. We're going
26:38
Speaker 1: to tackle a few questions from members about building a
26:42
Speaker 1: golf architecture library that will be published exclusively in CLUBTFE.
26:48
Speaker 1: And it's just one example of the kind of content
26:51
Speaker 1: we do there. Members are really part of the discussion
26:54
Speaker 1: with us, and we're very responsive to what they ask
26:57
Speaker 1: and what they're looking for. So again that's Club Tea,
27:00
Speaker 1: the fried Egg dot com slash membership. Really fun stuff
27:04
Speaker 1: going on in there, and I want you to be
27:06
Speaker 1: part of it. All right, thank you, and let's get
27:09
Speaker 1: back to the episode with Stephen Procter. All right. My
27:18
Speaker 1: next pick is going to be another modern one, and
27:22
Speaker 1: this is the book Grounds for Golf by Jeff Shackleford.
27:26
Speaker 1: And I would frame this pick as just a recommendation
27:30
Speaker 1: of Jeff Shackelford's library or bibliography in general. I think
27:35
Speaker 1: you can choose any of his introductions to golf course
27:38
Speaker 1: architecture and have something that's very worth reading. My preference
27:43
Speaker 1: is for Grounds for Golf, which is a book that
27:44
Speaker 1: he wrote a number of years ago and is intended
27:48
Speaker 1: as a kind of one oh one introduction to Modern
27:50
Speaker 1: golf course Design has some cool illustrations from Gil Hants,
27:54
Speaker 1: who is not at the time as well known as
27:57
Speaker 1: he is now, but Hans provided some of the visuals
28:00
Speaker 1: in Grounds for Golf, And one of the best parts
28:03
Speaker 1: of Grounds for Golf is this narrative that Shackelford offers
28:07
Speaker 1: of the construction of Rustic Canyon Golf Course, one of
28:09
Speaker 1: the best public golf courses in the country there in California,
28:14
Speaker 1: and he's able to give a really fine grained sense
28:17
Speaker 1: of what it's like to build a minimalist, strategic golf
28:21
Speaker 1: course in the twenty first century, and so for that alone,
28:24
Speaker 1: a very valuable introduction. But I find it Jeff to
28:28
Speaker 1: be one of the most interesting and engaging golf architecture writers,
28:34
Speaker 1: and he has a more recent introduction to golf course
28:37
Speaker 1: design called Golf Architecture for Normal People that I can
28:40
Speaker 1: recommend as well. Grounds for Golf is a little bit
28:43
Speaker 1: harder to get your hands on these days, but I
28:45
Speaker 1: think it is worth the effort because it is a
28:48
Speaker 1: very very good book. Have you read this one?
28:52
Speaker 3: I have not read that particular one. I have read
28:54
Speaker 3: Golf You know some of Jeff's other books.
28:57
Speaker 2: I'm trying.
28:57
Speaker 3: The names are going to escape me right now. But
28:59
Speaker 3: I have the highest regard for Jeff. He's like a conglomerate,
29:02
Speaker 3: you know, he does podcasts, he runs a great sub stack,
29:05
Speaker 3: he writes very intelligently off architecture, and is often involved
29:10
Speaker 3: in the redesign of golf courses themselves. So just a
29:14
Speaker 3: high regard for the guy. And I'm I'm you know,
29:16
Speaker 3: I haven't read that particular book, so but I'm sure
29:19
Speaker 3: you're correct that it's rewards reading, no doubt of it.
29:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a renaissance, renaissance man of golf. He does
29:26
Speaker 1: it all and says interesting things about it all. All right,
29:29
Speaker 1: So what's what's your next pick?
29:31
Speaker 2: Okay?
29:31
Speaker 3: You know there's an avenue that you can go down
29:34
Speaker 3: in addition to learning about the strategic architecture, which is
29:37
Speaker 3: to learn about the architects themselves. And there are a
29:39
Speaker 3: lot of books about individual architects, and I'm picking one
29:43
Speaker 3: new one called A Matter of Course, which is by
29:46
Speaker 3: Derek Markham and Philip Truett. Philip Truett, one of the
29:50
Speaker 3: great gentlemen of the game, a founder of the Golf
29:52
Speaker 3: Collector society in Britain and just a aerudite and interesting man.
29:57
Speaker 3: This book is a really fascinating study of the It's
30:00
Speaker 3: a very exhaustively researched book, and like such books, it
30:04
Speaker 3: is not exactly a joy ride to read in some ways.
30:08
Speaker 3: But Fowler is fascinating. And I think from the standpoint
30:11
Speaker 3: of your listeners, most of whom have to be in America,
30:14
Speaker 3: there'll be a great deal of fascination with the incredible
30:17
Speaker 3: impact that Fowler had on some of America's great sanctuaries,
30:22
Speaker 3: like Pebble Beach, for example. He had quite a bit
30:26
Speaker 3: to do with Pebble Beach. And I had discovered Fowler
30:29
Speaker 3: some time ago because for ten years I lived in
30:32
Speaker 3: the Bay Area, and I lived in downtown San Francisco,
30:35
Speaker 3: and so one of the places I played all the
30:37
Speaker 3: time was the course just outside in Berlin, Game called
30:40
Speaker 3: Crystal Springs Golf Course, which is a rollicking adventure of
30:44
Speaker 3: a course, lots of fun to play. And I always
30:47
Speaker 3: thought to myself, who is the person that designed this insane,
30:51
Speaker 3: crazy golf course, And it was Fowler who had done
30:53
Speaker 3: it on one of his many West Coast excursions. And
30:57
Speaker 3: the book is just wonderful. Fowler was himself a fascinating character,
31:01
Speaker 3: one of the few people who played cricket well enough
31:03
Speaker 3: to hit a ball out of Lord Stadium. And so
31:07
Speaker 3: he was quite a good athlete, quite a good golf
31:09
Speaker 3: and you know, obviously a very brilliant golf architect, known primarily,
31:12
Speaker 3: i guess now for Walton Heath, but there's a lot
31:14
Speaker 3: that he did, and it's pretty pretty interesting summation of
31:17
Speaker 3: it all.
31:18
Speaker 1: He designed the eighteenth hole a pebble beach. That's maybe
31:22
Speaker 1: a little known aspect of that course's history that the
31:26
Speaker 1: eighteenth hole was originally a kind of short par four
31:29
Speaker 1: and was extended into a par five.
31:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:33
Speaker 1: I think this is kind of the next step for
31:35
Speaker 1: people who are getting into golf architecture is to start
31:38
Speaker 1: to look at some architect biographies and course histories. There
31:41
Speaker 1: are a lot of really good ones, you know, and
31:44
Speaker 1: so if you find yourself interested in William Flynn, for instance,
31:48
Speaker 1: then you go to Wayne Morrison's book The Nature Faker
31:51
Speaker 1: and learn a lot more about William Flynn. And there
31:54
Speaker 1: are similar books that you could explore about Donald Ross.
31:58
Speaker 1: So you know, Brad Klein's Discovery Donald Ross is a
32:01
Speaker 1: great book. To have and to it certainly is, and
32:04
Speaker 1: so you know there there is a really rich literature
32:07
Speaker 1: of golf architecture. But as you get into those books,
32:10
Speaker 1: you start to you start to struggle to find them.
32:14
Speaker 1: Sometimes some are more available than others, but that's when
32:17
Speaker 1: you really start to have to hunt, or maybe have
32:20
Speaker 1: a good friend who works at a library. I think
32:22
Speaker 1: that's uh.
32:23
Speaker 3: Well, that's the part place I would recommend people look
32:25
Speaker 3: as Abe Books. That's one of the places that I
32:28
Speaker 3: I almost all the books that I need to acquire
32:30
Speaker 3: from my work are rare or out of print books.
32:33
Speaker 3: So for you know, Abe Books is a compendium of bookshops,
32:40
Speaker 3: individual booksellers, and they often have incredibly obscure books at
32:45
Speaker 3: manageable prices I got, for instance, And sometimes they'll have
32:49
Speaker 3: library cast off copies, so they're not in print, you know,
32:53
Speaker 3: in mint condition. They've got you like stampings on the
32:55
Speaker 3: front where people barred them from.
32:57
Speaker 2: The library, so they're not for collectors.
32:59
Speaker 3: But I got the rarest of all golf books that
33:01
Speaker 3: same way from Abe Books, a cast off version of
33:05
Speaker 3: the Golfer's Manual in eighteen fifty seven, the first book
33:08
Speaker 3: about golf by a guy named William Bruin Farney. So,
33:11
Speaker 3: you know, Abe Books is a good source for trying
33:13
Speaker 3: to track down some of these obscure volumes.
33:16
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good recommendation. My final pick, bit of
33:20
Speaker 1: a left field one, I'm going to go with Bury
33:23
Speaker 1: Me in a Pot Bunker by Pete Die. This is
33:27
Speaker 1: not typically on lists of this kind, but it's one
33:31
Speaker 1: of the books that I return to the most often
33:34
Speaker 1: because Die offers stories of some courses that are very
33:38
Speaker 1: frequently visited by the PGA Tour and other tours that
33:42
Speaker 1: are relevant and on TV to this day. So TPC Sawgrass, Harbortown, Kiowa,
33:48
Speaker 1: Whistling Straits, Bury Me in a Pot Bunker has narratives
33:52
Speaker 1: of those courses development and design that are just fascinating.
33:56
Speaker 1: You know. Die is such a great storyteller, has an
33:58
Speaker 1: I for a telling detail, and in general, I think
34:02
Speaker 1: that there is a bit of a gap in golf
34:05
Speaker 1: architecture literature. After the Golden Age of the nineteen twenties
34:10
Speaker 1: and thirties and before the revival of the nineteen nineties,
34:15
Speaker 1: there simply wasn't very much golf architecture literature written during
34:19
Speaker 1: that time. The World Atlas of Golf was one of
34:22
Speaker 1: the greatest products of that time, but there wasn't really
34:25
Speaker 1: much else going on, especially compared to the flowering of
34:29
Speaker 1: golf architecture literature that happened between the eighteen nineties and
34:33
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties, and so I think this book
34:37
Speaker 1: kind of fills that gap. And what it shows you
34:40
Speaker 1: is what golf architects were kind of working on and
34:44
Speaker 1: which areas they were innovating in in the sixties, seventies
34:48
Speaker 1: and eighties. And for Die, that was how to problem
34:51
Speaker 1: solve difficult sites. And Die did that better than just
34:55
Speaker 1: about anybody, and he produced more interesting courses than anybody
34:59
Speaker 1: from his period. And so just hearing about his thinking
35:03
Speaker 1: and how he got to the point where he was
35:05
Speaker 1: able to do such original work is a fascinating part
35:08
Speaker 1: of burying me in a pop punker and it's just
35:10
Speaker 1: a fun read. So that's what I would recommend there,
35:12
Speaker 1: leaving off some some really good books that we'll talk
35:15
Speaker 1: about in a second. So that's hard, but I really
35:18
Speaker 1: like this one.
35:19
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I have not read that book, so
35:20
Speaker 3: now it's going to move up to the top of
35:22
Speaker 3: my list of books.
35:23
Speaker 2: So I ought to read. I love Pete Dye.
35:25
Speaker 3: I've had, I've had, you know, the opportunity to play
35:29
Speaker 3: a lot of his courses because I grew up not
35:33
Speaker 3: too far from Bully Rock in Maryland, which was a
35:35
Speaker 3: course that's always rated on as one of the top
35:38
Speaker 3: in Maryland, and I played Bully Rock. Aton went every
35:41
Speaker 3: summer to Ocean City and I often have played his
35:43
Speaker 3: rum Point. So been a big fan of Pete Die's
35:46
Speaker 3: been out to PGA West to see that and done
35:50
Speaker 3: a few other of his great ones. So I love
35:52
Speaker 3: that idea, and I think, you know, I think it.
35:56
Speaker 3: I haven't read the book, but I think it's a
35:57
Speaker 3: great choice.
35:59
Speaker 1: So let's get into some honorable mentions. What were the
36:03
Speaker 1: ones that you left off of your list that you
36:05
Speaker 1: would still like to mention?
36:07
Speaker 3: You know, I want to mention a brand new, newish
36:09
Speaker 3: type book that might be difficult to find because it
36:11
Speaker 3: was one of these books that was printed in a
36:13
Speaker 3: small number. But Keith Cutten wrote a book called The
36:16
Speaker 3: Evolution of Golf Course Architecture, which if you just wanted
36:19
Speaker 3: to do, like, you know, golf architecture one oh one class,
36:23
Speaker 3: I'm not sure you can do much better than that book.
36:25
Speaker 3: It's really extremely well done. And very thorough and inclusive,
36:30
Speaker 3: both in terms of golf courses. There's individual sections on
36:35
Speaker 3: golf architects and quite a lot on the various theories
36:39
Speaker 3: that led up to the schools of golf design. So
36:43
Speaker 3: I thought that was a wonderful overview and I would
36:46
Speaker 3: recommend that one as an honorable mention.
36:49
Speaker 1: Great. Yeah, Keith Cutton. I wrote a review of this
36:52
Speaker 1: book back when it came out in twenty nineteen. I
36:54
Speaker 1: believe it was. This book was kind of an outgrowth
36:57
Speaker 1: of Keith's master's thesis Leave and the publishing of it.
37:03
Speaker 1: He just did a great job with because the visuals
37:06
Speaker 1: are really wonderful. There are high quality reproductions of some stuff,
37:10
Speaker 1: some maps and historical photos of courses that are really
37:14
Speaker 1: hard to find. And so if you get this book,
37:16
Speaker 1: you get not only all the research that that Keith
37:18
Speaker 1: did and his very thorough survey of the history of
37:21
Speaker 1: golf architecture, but you get some of these some of
37:24
Speaker 1: these images as well. Let's hit some other honorable mentions,
37:28
Speaker 1: just books that you quickly want to mention as well,
37:30
Speaker 1: and then I'll mention a few of the ones that
37:31
Speaker 1: I have on.
37:32
Speaker 3: That sure, a couple that were also on my list
37:34
Speaker 3: was another oldie but goodie, Some Essays on golf course
37:37
Speaker 3: architecture by Harry Colt and C. H.
37:40
Speaker 2: Allison.
37:40
Speaker 3: And you know, those two are just two of the
37:43
Speaker 3: most formative architects of the Golden Age, and so their
37:47
Speaker 3: thoughts and these essays are just very much worth understanding.
37:51
Speaker 3: That was one I was going to recommend. You mentioned
37:53
Speaker 3: the Spirit of Saint Andrews. I was going to recommend that,
37:56
Speaker 3: if only for the line. As a Scotsman, I'm naturally
37:59
Speaker 3: a pose to water in its undeluded state, which is
38:03
Speaker 3: what Mackenzie has to say about water hazards on Florida
38:06
Speaker 3: style courses. Another new one that I that I quite
38:10
Speaker 3: like about a man we discussed earlier, is called Simpson
38:13
Speaker 3: and Company, and it's by Fred Hawtree, and it's a
38:17
Speaker 3: relatively new exploration of Simpson and his courses around the world.
38:21
Speaker 3: It focuses principally on you know, how each course was
38:24
Speaker 3: built and what thought went into it and so forth
38:25
Speaker 3: and so on. So it's more for a specialist, but
38:28
Speaker 3: it's quite a good book. So those were the ones
38:31
Speaker 3: that filled out my list.
38:33
Speaker 1: Okay, so I have a few that I'll go through quickly.
38:37
Speaker 1: The first one that I feel guilty for not mentioning
38:40
Speaker 1: because I am friends with Bob Crosby, a mutual acquaintance
38:44
Speaker 1: acquaintance of ours, who is working on a book right
38:47
Speaker 1: now about John Lowe. And John Lowe's Book Concerning Golf
38:51
Speaker 1: is a very essential pillar of any golf architecture library,
38:57
Speaker 1: primarily because of a just a couple of chapters in
38:59
Speaker 1: the first chapter concerning the character of the game, in
39:03
Speaker 1: chapter nine concerning the links. There are portions of this
39:06
Speaker 1: book that are not relevant to golf course design specifically,
39:09
Speaker 1: but it's all pretty fun to read. Those chapters, though,
39:12
Speaker 1: are really formative. He is basically theorizing modern golf architecture,
39:18
Speaker 1: really for the first time. He's doing it earlier than
39:20
Speaker 1: anybody else, and Alistair Mackenzie in his own writing acknowledge
39:24
Speaker 1: the influence of John Lowe, the intellectual influence of John
39:28
Speaker 1: Lowe on the development of the theory of modern golf
39:32
Speaker 1: course design. So that's a very important book.
39:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I cannot wait for Bob's book on John Lowe
39:38
Speaker 3: because one thing that's can be across me quite vividly
39:41
Speaker 3: in working on The Long Golden Afternoon, which is more
39:44
Speaker 3: about players and about trends, but the importance of John
39:48
Speaker 3: Lowe to the game of golf cannot possibly be underestimated. Overestimated,
39:54
Speaker 3: I mean to say, and the importance of the Oxford
39:58
Speaker 3: and Cambridge Golfing Society itself. Both of those are so amazing.
40:03
Speaker 3: And Bob is the person who writes often for Through
40:06
Speaker 3: the Green, which is a magazine that I read all
40:08
Speaker 3: the time because that's where new work on golf history
40:10
Speaker 3: is published. And I have endless respect for him. I
40:13
Speaker 3: enjoyed your pod with him, and I look forward to
40:17
Speaker 3: his book on low and I completely agree with you
40:19
Speaker 3: on concerning golf.
40:21
Speaker 1: A few others to hit I mentioned before. Jeff Shackelford's
40:25
Speaker 1: body of work is very worth digging into. He has
40:29
Speaker 1: a collection of golf architecture writing from across history called
40:34
Speaker 1: Masters of the Links that I've found very useful in
40:37
Speaker 1: the past.
40:38
Speaker 3: And his biography the one I read that I couldn't
40:40
Speaker 3: come up with the name of earlier Masters of the Links.
40:42
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that, really good. And The Captain his
40:46
Speaker 1: biography of George Thomas, if you can find it, is
40:49
Speaker 1: really great. Tom Doak's section of our library that has
40:54
Speaker 1: a lot to dig into. His little read book of
40:56
Speaker 1: golf Architecture is kind of the ideal small coffee table
41:00
Speaker 1: book you can just It's almost like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
41:04
Speaker 1: for Golf or something like that, where you can just
41:06
Speaker 1: sort of dip in and dip out and get something worthwhile.
41:10
Speaker 1: His Confidential Guide to Golf Courses you mentioned, but you know,
41:12
Speaker 1: greatest golf review book ever published as far as I'm concerned,
41:16
Speaker 1: Aside maybe from Bernard Darwin's. He's published books on routing
41:20
Speaker 1: that are fascinating. There are articles on his website that
41:23
Speaker 1: you need to read, so that's a you know, that's
41:26
Speaker 1: a body of work that everybody should dig into. I
41:29
Speaker 1: really love Bradley S. Klein's brad Klein's book Rough Meditations.
41:34
Speaker 1: There are essays in there that are not about golf architecture,
41:37
Speaker 1: but the ones that are about golf architecture people need
41:40
Speaker 1: to read. I love the George Waters book Sand and Golf.
41:44
Speaker 1: I think it serves as a very very good introduction
41:48
Speaker 1: to golf architecture from a slightly different perspective. He sort
41:52
Speaker 1: of roots his observations in the land first and then
41:56
Speaker 1: builds out from there. Really smart way of going about it,
41:59
Speaker 1: and very well written book. A recent contribution to Introductions
42:03
Speaker 1: to golf Architecture would be Principles of Golf Architecture by
42:07
Speaker 1: Richard Mandel. This one is a little more academic, but
42:10
Speaker 1: a very distinctive take on the discipline that I think
42:14
Speaker 1: people should know about. And then, you know, going back
42:17
Speaker 1: to some some classic books that we haven't mentioned, Scotland's
42:21
Speaker 1: Gift by CB MacDonald. Now there's a lot of stuff
42:24
Speaker 1: in there about the founding of the USGA et cetera,
42:26
Speaker 1: et cetera that maybe people aren't going to be as
42:29
Speaker 1: interested in if they're just looking for writing about golf
42:31
Speaker 1: course design. But of course hearing his thoughts about the
42:35
Speaker 1: ideal holes is an essential thing to do if you're
42:39
Speaker 1: getting into golf architecture. And you know, finally, oh, I
42:43
Speaker 1: want to also mention. A Round of Golf Courses by
42:46
Speaker 1: Patrick Dickinson is good book.
42:48
Speaker 3: It's a fabulous he's a poet, so it's it's a
42:51
Speaker 3: beautifully written in edition to.
42:52
Speaker 1: The best written one ever. Yeah, the way he writes
42:55
Speaker 1: about golf courses is so fresh, because you know, I
42:59
Speaker 1: often find myself searching for new ways to describe golf
43:02
Speaker 1: holes and bunkers and greens, and stuff like that, and
43:05
Speaker 1: being like, man, I have nothing else to know, another
43:08
Speaker 1: way to put this, And then I read Dickinson and
43:10
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, there are a million ways.
43:12
Speaker 2: To inspiration both.
43:15
Speaker 3: I love his work and I've read that book many
43:18
Speaker 3: years ago and it's a classical one to have recommended.
43:20
Speaker 2: I love it.
43:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I almost forgot to mention that one. But
43:24
Speaker 1: the last thing I'd like to touch on is that
43:27
Speaker 1: there are a lot of essays, newspaper essays, magazine essays
43:32
Speaker 1: that were written between the eighteen nineties and the nineteen
43:36
Speaker 1: thirties that are just amazing on the subject of golf architecture.
43:41
Speaker 1: And they're hard to find, but I hope that people
43:43
Speaker 1: start collecting them in somehow or another. You know, Max
43:48
Speaker 1: Bear's essays are amazing, hard to read. You know, he's
43:53
Speaker 1: not the clearest writer in the world, but brilliant. And
43:56
Speaker 1: I'd also love to see collections of essays by Walter Travis,
44:00
Speaker 1: by John Lowe, and I'm sure you know those have
44:02
Speaker 1: been collected a little bit more. And Bob Crosby has
44:04
Speaker 1: done a lot of that kind of bibliographic work. But
44:07
Speaker 1: Horace Hutchinson, many other writers, Henry Leech, many other writers
44:11
Speaker 1: from this period deserve to be more read because there
44:15
Speaker 1: was such a lively conversation about golf course design during
44:19
Speaker 1: the golden age of golf course building and architecture. And
44:24
Speaker 1: I just hope that that we're able somehow just to
44:28
Speaker 1: distribute those those essays more effectively that that kind of work.
44:32
Speaker 1: And so that's that's a hope of mine for the future.
44:35
Speaker 1: And maybe I'll maybe I'll just have to do some
44:36
Speaker 1: of it myself.
44:37
Speaker 3: I was going to think that a great project for
44:39
Speaker 3: the Fried Egg to publish the book of the Ultimate
44:43
Speaker 3: Book of Golf Course Essays. Speaking of golf course essays,
44:47
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of essays were written by Alfred W.
44:50
Speaker 3: Tilling Has, who simply hasn't come up here, but one
44:52
Speaker 3: of my favorite architects and a very interesting human being.
44:56
Speaker 3: In addition to that a bit of a roused about.
44:59
Speaker 3: But he wrote a number of essays called the Course Beautiful.
45:02
Speaker 3: And there are a series of these books that you
45:03
Speaker 3: can find online that are a collections of his essays
45:07
Speaker 3: under that title, which are really nicely done, and I
45:10
Speaker 3: have two or three of them, and I would recommend those.
45:14
Speaker 3: You know, if you can find a copy of something
45:17
Speaker 3: called The Game of Golf by Lonsdale Library, which will
45:20
Speaker 3: you know, be in the rare book areas. You can
45:23
Speaker 3: probably get one though for a semi affordable price. Not
45:26
Speaker 3: only does it have these three seminal essays in there
45:29
Speaker 3: by Simpson with beautiful illustrations to accompany them about golf architecture,
45:33
Speaker 3: it has Darwin writing on golf courses. It has Joyce
45:37
Speaker 3: Weathered writing about driving a golf ball. So there's a
45:40
Speaker 3: number of interesting documents in that particular volume. So another
45:44
Speaker 3: couple things to throw out there.
45:46
Speaker 1: You can just keep going deeper and deeper. There's a
45:48
Speaker 1: collection of Donald Ross writings that people should check out
45:52
Speaker 1: as well. If they're going to look at the aw
45:54
Speaker 1: Telling hastbooks, they can start to look for some of
45:56
Speaker 1: these collections of architects scribblings and so there's you can
46:01
Speaker 1: just keep going deeper and deeper, obviously, but the ten
46:04
Speaker 1: books that we recommended upfront here would be a great
46:07
Speaker 1: way for anybody to start. So thank you for doing
46:11
Speaker 1: that with me, Steven. That was fun.
46:13
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed it. Garrett's always nice to be on
46:15
Speaker 3: the Friday. Big fan of the podcast, big fan of
46:17
Speaker 3: everything you're doing. In terms of creating a new kind
46:20
Speaker 3: of golf media. So I always cheering you on.
46:23
Speaker 1: Oh thank you so much, and tell people what you're
46:26
Speaker 1: working on right now, what should they expect from you
46:28
Speaker 1: in the near future.
46:29
Speaker 3: I just turned in a book about Joyce Weathered and
46:31
Speaker 3: Glenna Collette and the rise of women's golf. That's going
46:34
Speaker 3: to be titled Matchless and it will be published as
46:36
Speaker 3: all my books are in Scotland, by Berlin, and they
46:39
Speaker 3: have it targeted for the Christmas market this year, so
46:42
Speaker 3: I would imagine sometime in the mid fall we'll see
46:46
Speaker 3: it come out. Usually takes a month or two more
46:48
Speaker 3: to get to the United States, but I'm very excited
46:50
Speaker 3: about that.
46:51
Speaker 2: I think it's.
46:53
Speaker 3: An amazing story and I think it'll be an eye
46:55
Speaker 3: opener for readers because I think there's not an awareness
46:59
Speaker 3: of the incredible brilliance of some of the golfers women
47:03
Speaker 3: golfers of this age, in particular Choice Weather, but Glenna
47:06
Speaker 3: also so a great tale and I'm looking forward to
47:10
Speaker 3: getting it out there.
47:11
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to that as well. And Steven, you're
47:14
Speaker 1: going to stay on with me real quick to answer
47:16
Speaker 1: some questions from Club TF members. So that's going to
47:19
Speaker 1: be in Club TFE exclusively. Thanks for doing that and
47:24
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again soon.
47:26
Speaker 2: Love it, Garrett, thanks for having me on.
47:38
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by PJ. Clark.
47:42
Speaker 1: We'll be back again in two weeks again. We're publishing
47:46
Speaker 1: this pod on an every other week cadence, so if
47:49
Speaker 1: you haven't already hit that subscribe button, maybe even leave
47:53
Speaker 1: a rating and review in iTunes or Spotify or wherever
47:56
Speaker 1: you might be listening to us. And of course, if
47:59
Speaker 1: you like what we're doing here, check out Club tf E,
48:02
Speaker 1: the Friday dot Com slash membership get more involved. Thank
48:07
Speaker 1: you for listening, and we'll see you again soon