Doak

The Anatomy of a Golf Course
By Tom Doak

I didn’t win this week’s Powerball Lottery. I could have won over $45 million. If I did win, of course, I would have immediately started my new business as a golf course owner, developer, and budding golf architect.

While waiting to win the next lottery, I’ll content myself with re-reading Tom Doak’s modern-day classic on golf architecture. You should read it too.

Doak sets out all the basic principles of this discipline, making his points with cogent example after example from classic courses, as well as other courses not so well known. The book also has a nice collection of illustrations, and a beautiful set of color photographs.

He is an advocate of minimalism in design, and is not averse to stating strong opinions about his profession. He writes well, so it’s a pleasure to read his arguments about how a course should be designed.

Doak created his own collegiate major in this field while a student at Cornell. He caddied at St. Andrews, apprenticed under Pete Dye, and is now a sought-after architect in his own right. He’s also a contributing editor for Golf Magazine.

He gives useful guidance that can be easily read and accepted by club committees. His twelve points on landscaping for golf courses should be required reading by all greens committees, especially those with a mania for trees. Perhaps his most influential chapter, however, will be his segment on maintenance of the course. In my experience, some courses frankly spend too much attempting to emulate Augusta National, while forgetting that the money for Augusta is rarely available to most courses. He is correct to argue that fairway turf should be allowed to grow a bit more, thus helping the vast majority of golfers, and that the best prospects for long-term success could come from less insistence on perfect turf conditions.

If your club doesn’t have a copy of this book, consider buying a copy and donating it. If the greens committee reads it and follows Doak’s advice, they (and the other members) will thank you.

Review Date May 3, 1998