What a BALL S-UP! Will the game’s custodians ever see sense and act to reduce the distance the modern golf ball flies? The tipping point for me came when the R&A, aided and abetted by a compliant St Andrews Links Trust, started messing about with the Old Course. Suddenly deemed an inadequate challenge for modernRead more
SAGCA’s two female members, Kristine Kerr and Lyne Morrison, got together for a Q + A session on the courses of their careers over the past 25 years. Though never having worked together, they both started with the same company at different times, have been based internationally and each now run their own design businesses.Read more
Seven SAGCA members detail their time in the industry, revealing their various pathways to becoming a golf course architect, and noting the changes they have experienced along their journey. For 25 years the Society of Australian Golf Course Architects (SAGCA) has been the professional society where the golf course designers of the region have metRead more
Why are smart players increasingly being penalised for executing skillful shots that leave them optimum lines into flags? It doesn’t take all 140 Twitter characters to ask: “Why are all the bunkers in the rough – again? – Michael Clayton My fellow columnist John Huggan and I jokingly pose the same question almost each andRead more
2015 not only marked 50 years since Peter Thomson beat the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus to win his fifth Open title (at Royal Birkdale) – but also 50 years in the golf course design business.Read more
Harry Colt’s ‘Lost Holes’ at Sunningdale were among the points of interest witnessed by golf architects from Australia, the US and Europe on a recent study tour. During September 20 15 The European Institute of Golf Course Architects organised “to Heath & Links” – a study tour of four great golf courses, south of London.Read more
A struggling sugar cane farm near Port Douglas turned out to be the perfect site for a truly unique course The Links golf course at Port Douglas owes its existence to a declining appreciation of the Mirage Golf Course in the early 1990s. With owner/ developer Christopher Skase long since having ‘flown the coop’ toRead more
The R&A states that “on a par-3, a player will attempt to strike the ball onto the green, directly from the teeing-ground”. Does that hold true for all of us? The truth is that on par-3s, while most male golfers in Australia are provided the opportunity to putt for par, or even birdie, many womenRead more
Fifteen years in the making, nine holes at this extraordinary, low-cost project in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast are now open – proof of what can be achieved with patience and persistence. Maleny, proclaimed a township way back in 1891, had a population of 5,182 at the 2011 census. Its population has grown steadilyRead more
How technology has shaped our craft With the Australian Society of Golf Course Architects (SAGCA) celebrating its 25th birthday earlier in 2015 it is timely to reflect on how much the practice of golf architecture has changed. Technological advancements over the past 25 years have been unprecedented and have changed the golf industry and theRead more