Golf's Grand Design

Golf is the only sport played on a field with no specifically designed dimensions. Instead, the playing fields are created by both natural features of the land and the imagination of the architect.   "Building greens and hazards around the green, that's really like sculpture to us."  Golf course architect Tom Doak ponders, "What happens when the ball lands here and do I want it to bounce into that bunker, or do I not want it to? There's a lot going on in my head.  In a way, it's an art form, but in a way it's kind of engineering too."

The program explores various eras and trends that impacted course design and the game itself which took hold in America in the later part of the nineteenth century. America's earliest golf course designers came from Scotland, the ancestral home of golf. The first American courses were rudimentary, but golf found a home in America and the game has forever been tied to the places where it is played. The period after World War I is often called The Golden Age of golf course architecture in America, a time when many famous courses were built.

As the nation's economy suffered, few new courses were built between the Great Depression and World War II. Robert Trent Jones, Sr. became the dominant influence in the post war period. By the 1960s, golf courses were associated with the building of residential housing communities, impacting the cost and style of courses. Then, with the economic boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, a period of extravagant design dominated courses before a return, in recent years, to a more minimalist approach. Golf's Grand Design looks at the impact of historical figures such as C.B. Macdonald, Tom Bendelow, A.W. Tillinghast, and Alister MacKenzie. The program also examines the role of contemporary architects such as Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Ben Crenshaw, and Bill Coore.