Design Notebook: Architect Roundtable on Links Golf

Welcome back to Design Notebook, where we’re trying to go to bed 30 minutes earlier each night. Soon enough, 4 a.m. will feel like 9 a.m.! Maybe!

In this Open-week edition of DN, we offer a roundtable discussion of links golf with four golf architects who have studied the seaside game deeply: James Duncan, Clyde Johnson, Angela Moser, and Dave Zinkand.

Architect Roundtable: Links Golf

By Garrett Morrison

Early golf writers did not use the term “links golf.” This is because, until well into the 20th century, the seaside game simply was the game. Inland golf was so clearly inferior that it could be dismissed as an offshoot.

This dynamic shifted as the game expanded globally in the years after World War I. By the time World War II ended, links golf had become a subcategory—a traditional form of the game with which most golfers outside of Western Europe were unfamiliar. Yet for certain golf architects, the links of Great Britain and Ireland remained a primary source of inspiration.

So to set the mood for Open week, I sent a few questions about links golf to four architects who have spent a great deal of time on the sandy coasts of the Old World. Below you’ll hear from:

• James Duncan—associate for Coore & Crenshaw and project partner at Brambles
• Clyde Johnson—principal of Cunnin’ Golf Design and lead associate on Tom Doak’s Cabot Highlands project
• Angela Moser—associate for Tom Doak and Gil Hanse, and lead associate on Doak’s Pinehurst No. 10 project
• Dave Zinkand—principal of Zinkand Golf Design and former Coore & Crenshaw associate

What was one of your earliest and most memorable experiences with links golf? How did this experience affect your understanding of design or the game in general?

James Duncan: A couple come immediately to mind. The Jubilee Vase circa 1993 on The Old Course. Like the Walker Cup, you could walk inside the ropes and it was a chance to see the golf at ground level, as it happened. I’ve been fortunate to go back to St. Andrews many times since but that was a special experience fairly early in my career. Another is from the King’s Links in Aberdeen—playing that course while I lived there for a few months. Bold contours mowed tight, figure-out-how-to-get-in-the-hole type of golf. Cruden Bay nearby is the same, and terrific. Honorable mention would be my first visit to Nairn. Truest greens I’d ever experienced at that time. Those elements still influence my design work today: Contours, lots of short grass, true greens.

Clyde Johnson: I’d grown up playing pitch-and-putt courses by the seaside as a young child, but my first experience of a “serious” links course came at the New Course in St. Andrews as a 13-year-old. The spirit of adventure and engagement with the rumpled natural contours was most captivating. Since then I have gone on to play 170-plus of the world’s links courses. I am always struck by how easily links courses sit in their local (and external) environments—the golf is just laying there, and it is nearly always the better for it.

Angela Moser: Growing up in Bavaria, I didn’t experience links golf until my Erasmus scholarship in England. Links golf was so different from everything I had experienced before. The lush green grass of German golf courses plays very differently from the firm and fast conditions of the links. There was much more emphasis on the ground game and creativity in shots. Trying to be precise with a five-club crosswind was mind-boggling. It was less about hitting a lofty wedge into the air and spotting the number and more about a low bump-and-run shot that shows your creativity and finding your own route in the rumbling contours of the links.

A links course offers endless shot diversity, opening up different routes for every kind of golfer. These different routes split the design into different angles, risks, rewards, and strategic plays. Links courses have such depth that they are hard to grasp if only played once.

Dave Zinkand: In 1997, my year in Britain and Ireland on the Dreer Award began just as winter arrived to the south of England. Amidst a long stay in Woking, I ventured to the southeast coast on a tip from fellow Dreer recipient, Chris Monti. Each January, The Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society plays the President’s Putter at Rye Golf Club. This hard and fast track was easily the best course with the least hype of all the clubs I would see in Britain and Ireland. The layout was an evolution, with contributions from Sir Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, and most notably Harry Colt. Three intersecting dune ridges form the backbone of the routing and every hole uses the land in a new and exciting way—atop, over, alongside, you name it. I’d already been wowed by the running game opportunities on the heathlands, even in the dead of winter. Rye blew me away, watching excellent former college golfers battle it out amongst the dunes. It was pure inspiration seeing this particularly compact design that is packed with variety and takes full advantage of its wind-swept terrain to reward traditional shot-making.

What is your favorite golf course on the Open rota? Why? (Just for fun, let’s stipulate that you can’t choose the Old Course.)

Johnson: Muirfield. It’s the most architecturally polished of all links courses, to the point of perfection! The terrain and elevation change is more interesting than people might first assume, though the clever clockwise outer loop and then anti-clockwise inner loop makes the most of that (and the influence of the wind). Wonderfully strategic bunkering over tilted fairways demands shot-making. The green complexes extend from grade, but are graceful in their creation. The pot bunkers are the most artful of any links, full of variety in shape and situation. Perhaps the best set of par 5s on any links, including the ninth, which makes use of a boundary wall along its entirety. You could pick any hole from Muirfield to make up an eclectic 18.

Duncan: Setting aside TOC, I’d have to say Muirfield. It fits my eye, I love how it’s restrained but still packs plenty of punch. It’s elegant, measured, historic, and just beautiful.

No. 8 at Muirfield (Fried Egg Golf)

Zinkand: Colt’s contributions at Royal Portrush put that up near the top of the current rota, along with Royal St. George’s for its whimsy.

I’ll throw you a curveball, though. Along with Rye and the Old Course at St. Andrews, a most impactful seaside course to my career is the very first championship venue, Prestwick. Set on the Ayrshire Coast, Prestwick held the first 12 championships in a row, beginning with Willie Park Sr.’s victory in 1860. The course was just 12 holes then, but they are dynamic and inspiring. The fifth is the famed Himalayas. A par 3, it hits over the namesake ridge to a green protected by a number of bunkers on the left side, towards which the wind often blows. The right side is then only guarded by one bunker so that if the wind doesn’t bring the ball back, they may go unscathed. The 13th, Sea Headrig, is an incredibly difficult par 4 with a diagonal green wickedly crowned in front. Seventeen is the famous Alps and requires a blind second shot over the alps to a substantial green which sets just across the Sahara.

Nos. 5 and 6 at Royal Portrush (Fried Egg Golf)

Moser: How can you vote for any place other than the birthplace of The Open? Prestwick has a deep history and some of the best and most unique golf holes. It features one of the greatest starting holes in golf, named “Railway,” as the train tracks present a strategic challenge with the out-of-bounds running close to the line of play. The world-famous blind par 3, “Himalayas,” made me giggle when I first saw and played it. No architect in the past 100 years has created anything quite like this. The “Alps” template originates in Prestwick’s hole 17 and can get you into serious trouble with its railroad-sleeper sunken-in bunkers. It’s a shame that Prestwick is off the rotation, but understandably so, as it’s just an example of what happens if we keep adding length to the game.

Tell me about a links golf hole that you find yourself thinking about often, or that you’ve used as inspiration in your own architectural work.

Zinkand: Old Tom Morris lent a hand on the original nine at Royal Dornoch, the eventual home course of a young Donald Ross. The landscape at Dornoch essentially consists of two shelves created by coastal subsidence. The result is a front nine in which the holes run either atop or just below a substantial bank of maybe 40 feet, while most of the inward holes incorporate a small winding shelf of about five feet, creating a plateau which bends its way in and out of play. The greens are often elevated onto plateaux or other rises, allowing angled banks in the approaches. Players must consider these slopes on preceding shots to attack from the proper side. Fourteen, known as Foxy, uses the small shelf particularly well, so that the green sets out on a peninsula-like segment of the plateau. The defense and definition are great, along with the coastal highland setting.

Johnson: No course has influenced me more than the Old Course, and perhaps no architect has influenced me more than MacKenzie. Unsurprisingly, then, I find myself thinking about the 14th hole more than most. The player is afforded a freedom to choose their own route, which might vary by as much as 100 yards from day to day, as the wind direction and/or pin position changes. There is a striking consequence and jeopardy for where the ball finishes on every shot. Though the shared playing corridor with the fifth is fundamental to its interest, size doesn’t always matter, with the tiny “Graves” pots as influential as the enormous “Hell” bunker.

The Old Course's famed Hell bunker at No. 14 (Fried Egg Golf)

Moser: I often think about how blindness on golf courses impacts the layout and influences playing routes. It saddens me when courses decide to remove blindness under the pretext of making it fairer for everyone. Consider the above-mentioned fifth hole, “Himalayas” at Prestwick, the second hole at Royal County Down, the punchbowl 16th at NGLA, the iconic bathtub green on Cruden Bay’s 14th, or the Dell at Lahinch—these unique holes have stood the test of time. However, for a golfer, hitting a blind shot can be uncomfortable. You don’t know how the ground is shaped or how your ball will behave. Will you execute the shot the way you pictured it? Will you trust your idea and commit when you address the ball? For me, it’s part of the adventure of playing golf and a much-needed difference to the favorite elevated tee shot.

Duncan: We’re currently building a version of the “Pit” 13th from the West Links at North Berwick on the new course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salaam. It’s cliché, but if it’s a hoot on the West Links, then it’ll be a hoot in Rabat. Morocco has a wonderful tradition of stone masonry, so not only is the hole type a nod to the whimsy of links golf, it’s also a tip of the cap to Moroccan building tradition.

The Pit, No. 13 at North Berwick (Fried Egg Golf)

What is an aspect of British and Irish links golf that you think can and should be brought to golf courses in the U.S.?

Moser: Less water. Dogs. Walking trolleys.

Burnt-out fairways are part of the game and the season. You are saving money for irrigation, making your turf stronger (survival of the fittest), hitting your ball longer, and helping to reduce global warming. Embrace it!

Zinkand: Variety in the severity of hazards seems essential to me. A certain natural variation in the difficulty of bunkers, as well as some heightened strategic difficulty with hazards on the optimal line of play, is a great way to separate the best golfers while allowing higher handicappers to steer away from trouble.

Johnson: There’s much more intentionality to golf course architecture in the U.S. I’m generalizing, but: links courses were first laid over the ground, and then became more refined at the turn of the 20th century with architects such as Braid and then Colt refining courses with a very modest (and very practical) amount of earthworks. Imperfection and randomness helped links courses retain a sense of individuality that is fundamental to their enduring interest. New courses tend to be over-designed and overbuilt, and all courses tend to be over-maintained. Golf is such a simple game!

Duncan: Simplicity. Less idolizing “eye candy.” Contours, lots of short grass, true greens.

Chocolate Drops

By Garrett Morrison

Same old Troon (mostly): By the standards of recent Opens, the latest changes to Royal Troon, executed by the R&A’s favorite tinkerers, Mackenzie & Ebert, in preparation for this year’s championship, are modest. New back tees have been built on several holes, including on the par-4 sixth, which can now stretch to 623 yards. On the “Postage Stamp” eighth hole, the famous “Coffin” bunker left of the green has been deepened and steepened. The R&A has also indicated that it may set up No. 8 as short as 99 yards, using a forward tee and a (frightening) front pin position. Finally, Google Earth aerials indicate that several ungainly sand scrapes, fresh off Mackenzie & Ebert’s assembly line, have appeared in various sectors of the property. A few sit directly in front of back tee boxes, forcing their frilly way into TV coverage. Ah, nature!

CDP gets involved at Cleeve Hill: The firm Clayton, DeVries & Pont announced on Friday that it had been retained by Cleeve Hill Golf Club, an 1891 Old Tom Morris design, later renovated by Alister MacKenzie, in England’s Cotswolds. Cleeve Hill has seen hard times recently: the course nearly closed during the pandemic but was purchased by Cotswold Hub Co in early 2021. Overseeing the course renovation will be CDP associate Sam Cooper (last week’s guest on the Fried Egg Golf podcast, incidentally), who said, “This project isn’t an exercise in making Cleeve ‘conventional’ or in changing its character. Our intention is to help a singular course become even more so.”

A Course We Photographed Recently

Medinah Country Club, Course No. 3 (Medinah, IL)—originally designed by Tom Bendelow, opened in 1928, reopened last week after renovation work by OCM Golf that began fall 2022

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Quotable

“Gullane is usually cited as the headquarters from which it is possible to play the largest number of rounds in one day, each round being on a different course, but it is by no means certain that the distinction which is thus given to East Lothian does not really belong to Prestwick and Troon. As one approaches Prestwick, the train seems to be voyaging through one endless and continuous golf course—Gailes, Barassie, Bogside—I write them down pell-mell as they come into my head—Prestwick, St. Nicholas, St. Cuthbert, Troon, and several more beside. Moreover, Troon ‘surprises by himself’, a prodigious assemblage of courses. There is the course proper, and there is the ‘relief’ course; there is another course, which may be termed the ‘super-relief’ course; and there are various practice grounds consecrated to women and children. The turf is something softer—at least in my imagination—than that of the East Coast courses, and the greens are wonderfully green and velvety, and looking as if they get plenty of rain, as in fact they do.” –Bernard Darwin