The Architects of Golf
If you have an interest in golf course design, you should also have a basic understanding of the designers.
If you are curious about the firm that designed the resort courses you just played, you might also wonder what other courses that firm has done.
The Architects of Golf fills both these needs.
The book is set out in three major sections.
The first part gives the reader a fascinating history of how the course design profession developed since the late nineteenth century.
The photographs alone are compelling, at least for former history majors. While providing biographies of some of the profession’s major architects, the authors also describe the varying design philosophies that distinguished the designer’s work from others.
The book’s second part gives a short biographical profile of golf course designers. The profiles are short, but this section is long, since there are literally hundreds of profiles presented. This section also gives the readers a country-by-country, state-by-state listing of the courses for which these architects are responsible.
The book’s third part sets out a master list of golf courses throughout the world, cross-referenced to the architects of record for each course. This part works well with the second part. You can browse through this section, find the designer that did that resort course you just played, and then go to Part Two and see what else that firm has done.
You also discover there are far too many courses named Rolling Hills CC.
Geoffrey Cornish is a golf course architect himself, and has done many courses in the New England region. Ronald Whitten is the architecture editor for Golf Digest and Golf World magazines.
The first edition of this book came out in 1981, and was called The Golf Course. The revised edition came out in 1993. According to Amazon.com, the book is now out of print, but they can easily find copies for you with their contacts in the used book trade.
With the thousands of courses built in the last six years, it’s about time for another edition of this book. In the meantime, you can’t find another source on this subject as comprehensive and useful as this one.
Review Date June 18, 1998
Note: Years after writing this review, I contacted Whitten about another edition–not likely, unfortunately.