Hey, it's Garrett. Before you get started on today's episode of the School of Golf Architecture, I wanted to tell you a little about the Friday Egg Newsletter. We send it out three days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it'll keep you up to date on all the most important happenings in the golf world. I think Will Knights, who writes it, does a really good job, not only telling you what you need to know in a concise way, but also offering a smart perspective on the events and
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Well, we've all faced it to the dreaded fried egg not to be cleared, though it's actually a pretty easy shot to hit. Welcome back to the Frida Egg Podcast and to the fifth edition of the School of Golf Architecture. I'm Garrett Morrison. A few months ago, the PGA Tour player Roberto Castro tweeted out something that got me thinking. He said, I'm no student of golf architecture, but even still, I've never once thought about the routing of a golf course.
What am I supposed to be comparing it to the infinite other routings an architect could have chosen. I don't get it. This is a fairly common frustration. I think most golf architects will tell you that routing is their most important task. At the same time, it's often the most difficult aspect of a golf course for a player to perceive. So my hope is with this installment of the School of Golf Architecture, we can clear up some
of that confusion. The term routing in golf course design refers to how an architect lays out holes on a piece of land, or, as Tom Doak puts it, routing is choosing the position of teas and greens for every golf hole on the course. Sounds pretty simple, but it's definitely not here at the Frida Egg. We've already done a number of podcasts and articles on routing, and I've listed several of those in a post on our website. But this time I'd like to come at the topic
from a different direction. Typically we've asked how architects go about the routing process, but today I'd like to ask how we as golfers, can understand a routing when we're playing it. This isn't all that easy because routing is a kind of invisible art. I mean, we can see the architect's craft and how bunkers are shaped, or how greens are contoured, or how hazards are arranged to present us with strategic dilemmas. Those elements are visible and legible.
But a routing is different because once the course is built, it's tough to see how it could have been routed otherwise. The alternatives are hidden under the finish work, and so who can say whether the existing routing is good or not? As Roberto Castro said, what are you supposed to compare it to? So to learn more about how a golfer might read a routing. I called up Jeff Mingay. Jeff is one of the most thoughtful golf architects in the
game today. For almost a decade, he worked with Rod Whitman, helping on courses like black Hawk outside of Edmonton and Cabot Links on Nova Scotia. In two thousand and nine, Jeff started his own firm, and he's done several excellent renovations of courses designed by Vernon McCann in the Pacific Northwest. These include the stunning Victoria Golf Club, as well as Inglewood,
Broadmoor and fur Crest in the Seattle area. Jeff joined me from his office in Toronto, and our conversation ended up being so rich that I decided to split it into two parts. In this first episode, we talk about the elements of a good golf course, routing elements that any player and notice to say. You're just a regular golfer. You're playing a new course of course that you haven't played before, and as you're playing it, you want to figure out whether you think it's routed well or not.
What are some of the things, just off the top of your head that you think this golfer should think about.
Well, one of the big things for me, and of course it's it's very very much dependent on what type of property you know, an architect is working with, But I think connectivity is very very important the walk between holes, from one green to the next tee. I feel like you're just comfortable when you when you leave a green and you know where the next tea is, you know,
something as simple as that. I've been to so many golf courses unfortunately, where you leave a green and if you hadn't been there previously, you're think where do I go next? That's an uncomfortable feeling to uh. You know, I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but even even outside being a traditionalist, it's nice to have the next tee in the next hole will be the obvious place to go, so you get a very nice connectivity and a nice flow through a property.
The simplistic take on this would be that the green to tea transitions need to be short, but it's not necessarily about that, right, So what are what is the what are the criteria for connectivity between greens and teas?
Yeah, I mean, ideally you do want a short connection between the previous hole and the next tea. But again terrain is going to affect that as well. But you can still as an architect lay something out so that even if there's a distance that you need to that you need to traverse to get to the next hole, it still makes sense. If that makes sense where that connected. You know, you're not only thinking about the golf holes, but you're actually thinking of the flow between those holes.
You know, in one of the one of the great golf courses in the world, for that is Highland's Links, Stanley Thompson's golf course out and Kate Bretton, you know, built in late thirties, early forties. He takes sean what I think is a thirteen kilometer journey through this property, which is part of a national park, and there's there's a number of significant walks between holes. The gap between the the twelfth and the thirteenth, I believe it is
is something like five hundred yards. But Thompson created a
beautiful path along the Clybourne River. It's obvious when you walk off the back of that green that the trail's there and you walk from the twelfth onto the thirteenth, that your companions nice opportunity to chat The difference between that particular golf hole and say a lot of golf courses routed through residential community is that again, when you walk off the back of the twelve screen, it's obvious where you're going, even though it's a couple hundred yards
walk or three hundred whatever it might be, it's obvious. So the flow and the connectivity between holes is still is still well done, even though there's quite a distance between the two holes.
Right that having those transitions well thought out by the architect is really important. And one place where I see that done really well is at Bandon Trails, where the name of the course is focusing in fact on those transitions between the holes, and those transitions are beautiful. The paths are well tended, and the walks are well thought out.
You know.
To me, when you have one of these long walks between a green and a tea, I think it's really great. Not only when there's something cool to look at, not only when you're traversing cool terrain and there's a view or something like that to reward you for the walk or give you a reason to do the walk, but also like it when it feels like you're going somewhere new where you're not just going back through the same old territory, you know what I mean, I do.
And Highland's Links is a very very good example of that, because much like bandoned trails are, much like Cyprus Point, Thompson does a really excellent job of celebrating three or four very very distinct environments on that single property that was dedicated to the golf course. In that walk between twelve and thirteen is one of the exact best examples of the world because again he's given you this opportunity
to enjoy the Clybourne River. You're actually leaving the Wooded River Valley en route back to the ocean, so you're right, he's sort of even though there's this cases where you're walking through a residential community, you know, you're kind of why do I have to walk two or three hundred
yards between these two holes? This is silly. At Highland's Links, you can't wait to do it because again he's putting, you know, one of the most beautiful environments in the world on display as part of the round of golf.
Right, and another one I'd like to shout out here is Pacific Grove. I don't know if you've been to Pacific Grove, it's not exactly near where you are. Have you been to Pacific Grove? Oh great, Well, you know the back nine there, it's in the dunes. And one of my favorite green to tea transitions in the world
is from eleven green to twelve tee there. So the eleventh hole plays down off of the top of the hill and the green is benched into the biggest family of dunes on the property, right and this is a big gathering point in the routing of that back nine, that tall grouping of dunes. The eleventh green is benched into there, and the transition to the next tee to the twelfth tee is through the back of that green.
You take a path that goes through these beautiful dunes, and then halfway through the walk, the ocean is revealed to you. The Pacific go is revealed to you, and you walk out onto this tee and suddenly the final reveal is the hole, the twelfth hole, a par five running over amazing terrain along the road next to the ocean, and that is an incredibly dramatic walk. It's its own reward, and you really do feel like you're going somewhere new
and to me, it's a long walk. You know, it takes a minute to get from the eleventh green to the twelfth tee. But it is a feature of the golf course. It is not a flaw in the routing. It's part of the routing.
Anyone who's experienced Thailand's Links as well speaks of that walk between twelve and thirteen. It's legitimately one of the among a bunch of great holes in a bunch of great and diverse environments. It is one of the highlights
in the round. As a matter of fact, there was no golf carts at Highland's Links until the mid nineties, I think, and one of the things people who are familiar with the golf course complain quite a bit about was that the new cart path didn't run along the Cliburne River between twelve and thirteen, so you actually miss the experience of walking for five hundred yards between those holes.
And once the carts got introduced to the experience, it really became clear that that particular walk was an imp important part of the journey around that course.
So that's one good thing for golfers to notice. You know, what are the walks like between greens and tees. Are they their own reward or are the greens and tees close to each other? Does it make sense where you're going. Yeah, I think that's really important. Obviously, it gives the round a sense that it's not a segmented round, it's a whole experience. Let's talk about some other things that make for a good routing. You know, I think you and I have talked about the use of natural features on
a property. How is that something that a golfer can notice in the course of the round. What would you look for when you're thinking about how a routing uses or maximizes the best natural features of a certain piece of property.
You know, essentially what a golf course architect is trying to do is get the best out sort of the best out of the natural assets you're provided on every property. Right, you want to take a look at this piece of ground and use use the existing terrain, the existing vegetation, existing views, all those existing things the best way that you possibly can. For a couple of reasons. You know,
obviously that's going to minimize construction costs. If you can find holes that are just laying on the ground, you know, you don't have to push a lot of dirt er eye you have to build too much. That's going to be to the benefit of the developer an eventual owner in terms of you know, from a business perspective. But the other reason to use natural features to the best of your ability is that you're going to inevitably arrive
at creating unique holes. You know, our minds can't be as creative as nature, but we can be creative in terms of how we use terrain to create unique golf holes and more importantly, a variety of holes among the eighteen.
So not all golf course sites have amazing natural features. Obviously. It's say that there's a course that's just on a plain hillside that doesn't necessarily have any humps or bumps in it. It's just a slope, it's a hillside you're building a course on there. What is a way in which a routing can maximize that kind of site.
Well, you know, you know, as long as it's not a mountain side, a hillside can actually be quite interesting and the routing is probably Wow. The routing is always the most important thing in golf course architecture. But the routing on a hillside can really take advantage of a number of things. You can create downhill holes, uphill holes,
side hill holes. So if we can put that puzzle together and utilize that slope in that fashion, we're constantly changing direction where one hole we're playing uphill, next all we're playing down hill, next all we're playing side hill. You know, Augusta National jumps in my mind immediately along
with Stanley Thompson's Capillanam. You know, those are two of the great routings on steep sites, you know that are steep on a single plane, and they just did a wonderful job by by doing exactly what I just described, you know, getting those holes to move different directions, to change elevation in different ways. You know. So a hillside like that, even though it's featureless, can actually end up being something special with a smart routing.
Yeah, and one of the keys is variety in which in the ways in which the holes use the land. You know, if they're just going back and forth across the hillside, you're going to have a boring golf course. But if they're going up and down, if they're turning different ways on the hillside, if each hole uses it differently. Then you've got you've got some variety. You're you're maximizing that natural feature exactly.
And in the hillside example is interesting too because it brings to mind prevailing wind, which is always a huge consideration in routing a golf course. So if you take that hillside on that single plane and you find those holes that change direction, that change elevation in different ways, you're creating a variety of holes. But then you're actually
attacking the wind angle in different ways. So now you've you've again it elevated that that that sense of variety among the holes by not only using the terrain in in a variety of ways, but also factoring prevailing wind and making sure that golfers aren't consistently playing into the wind, or consistently playing downwind, or consistently playing sidewind crosswayd I should say sorry, you know, which brings Saint Andrews to mind.
You know, we talk about what a great golf course Saint Andrews is and how much it provides us in terms of learning about architecture and taking inspiration, but it's a bizarre routing because you know, you basically play as everyone knows out for nine holes in for nine holes, and you know, I've been fortunate to play the old course a number of times, and when the wind's India on the outgoing nine, I mean you almost want to
stop after six or seven holes. Then you get out to the end and you turn around and you know you're going to hit some of the most exciting drives of your life downwind. But it's really not a great routing because if the wind is a huge factor on any given day, it's pretty much a slog out and a weird, long hitting chip shot course on the way in.
You know, going back to the notion of using the natural features of the property or maximizing using them as
much as possible. One of the things that really has kind of changed the way that I look at golf courses when I walk aside and look at how the holes are on the land, is that I try to identify what the most prominent natural thing features are, or what the most interesting natural features are, whether it's a you know, a big bump or or some kind of slope or you know, some kind of vegetation or whatever
it is. You know, whether it's a view right a vista, I try to see what those prominent features are, and then I look at how many holes use it and how they use it, whether there are greens there, whether there are tea's there, whether you return to that feature over the course of the round, not just in one part of the round, but say early in the round
and laid in the round. Do you see that as as an important part of the experience of a golf course, of a routing, that there's a beautiful or cool natural feature and the and the holes return to it several different times.
Yes, I mean, and you know, most of the great routings you know across the globe feature those congregation points you're talking about, and they are really cool from a playing perspective, from a spectating perspective especially, I mean you see it in Augusta. You know where two green comes down into that congregation, three leaves, seven comes back, eight goes off. I mean for spectating, you know it's it's
it's an amazing way to route a golf course. And I'm sure Alistair mackenzie had that in mind actually when when they were routing Augusta. Another great congregation routing is Oakland Hills. You know where the eleventh comes comes into that beautiful hill that's sort of in the center of the property. The twelfth goes off it. On the other side, the eighth comes into the hill parallel to twelve, and then the beautiful part three ninth off the hill with
the clubhouse in the background. Utilizing a single hill like that for as many as four or five different holes is yeah, it's a it's a real special way to route a golf course. And again you see it so many places, from Augusta to Oakland Hills, Romel or you know one project that I worked on, Blackhawk Golf Club at Edmonton, Alberta. The front nine, you know, the second hole plays into a big dooney hill, Third goes off of it, fifth comes back, six goes off of it,
and seven drives over it. You know when Rod Whitman routed that golf course, you know, I was there from early on and I kept thinking about that congregation and it's kind of a as we talked about in terms of like just flow. It also feels nice that you come up with the hill, you go off the hill, you leave, you come back. It's just as that nice indescribable feel about it that you're you feel like you're playing you know, I've always said I think whether or
not they actually realize it. I mean, golfers most enjoy playing the game in a natural setting, and I think when you feel like you're actually playing over terrain that's always been there, a natural golf course and playing into natural features. You know, coming up the hill on nine at Cyprus with that big dune behind the green, I mean, you know, nobody built that. It's a beautiful natural feature. So utilizing those features both for golf features, for backgrounds,
and again that whole congregational idea. You'll see that a lot at the best courses in the world.
So one last subject that I'm interested in for good routings or things that golfers can notice when they're trying to assess a routing of a golf course. And this is one that I've had a really hard time describing. So I'm curious about how you would describe it. Do the best routings have a kind of sense of narrative or a sense of drama or a sense of music about them from beginning to end? And how would you
describe that? And what do you think is like the best metal I just gave three metaphors there, right, story, drama, and music. Do you have any favorite metaphors for describing how a routing can kind of like take you on a journey like that?
Huh. That's interesting, I mean, because you know, if you're on a golf course that's basically in the middle of a city, and you know, you're not visiting different environments like you do abandoned trails or highlands, lakes or Cyprus point, to find those different pieces of the symphony, so to speak, is tougher. But when you get on those properties where there are again more diverse sections to it, I think, you know, obviously those environments can create that kind of feeling.
You know. The other thing, too, is that Marion's an interesting deal where you know the way that it flows. Front nine, you know, you play a couple couple of stout holes, come out of the gate up to number four, you know, or sorry five, the long part four a quite a pedal to the metal. Start at Marion. Then you go through this middle section where it's hard to believe that there could be so many three hundred and thirty yard holes in a row that are so cool,
you know, and then you cross the road. After twelve you play the little thirteenth and then you better put your seatbelt on again from fourteen through eighteen. Like I said about the old course, I mean, I don't think anyone would tell you that that's a great example of a quote unquote ideal routing, but anyone would love to
take credit for routing those holes at Marion. So I guess we're lucky in the sense that all the great courses are like different albums or different books or different songs. I mean, thank goodness, you know, they all kind of have their first tee to home green story. But I guess the fact that we can't really sum it up into one little tight box is a good thing because it's it's hard to explain it's so personal to each site in each golf course.
Yeah, Marion is an interesting example. Obviously, it's it's famously a tight property. But but somehow or another, the routing makes it feel like it's it's not constrained in any way. You know, there's there's a sense of freedom, and I think there is also a sense of drama because you reach a crescendo at the quarry right you you visit the most stunning kind of natural feature on that property as the round gets to its apex, and so there is to me a kind of sense of drama. That's
where it really ramps up. And and those closing holes are quite dramatic and have created a lot of drama and the tournaments that have been played there they are.
And that's another good point too, is a routing like Marion getting you to that that finale that you know is there. I mean, there's another great example of taking, you know, a relatively small feature of the site, the old quarry at Marion, and utilizing it so perfectly for the final three holes. Incredible. Frankly, Pete Died did the same thing at Sawgrass, you know, to dig a couple of lakes there and then come up with sixteen seventeen
eighteen as your finishing piece is great. But you know, and he would he would probably be the first to admit it, mister Die, that you know he learned that lesson from places like Marion, from places like Pebble Beach, from places like Cyprus Point, where you know, those those
cliff sides were so well utilized. And again the quarry at Marion bringing you to that kind of conclusion is another consistent I think among many of the great golf courses in the world where the architects did a really, really wonderful job with bringing you to that most exciting place right at the end.
So, just to sum it up, Jeff and I touched on three basic things you can keep track of when you're looking at the routing of a golf course. One the link between a green and the next tee? Is it clear where you need to go? And if the walk is longer, is there something cool about it? In other words, do the tee to green transitions give the course a sense of coherence and flow? Two the use of the property's features. What are the best assets of the landscape and do the holes maximize those assets by
using them frequently and with variety. Three And admittedly this is more of a hobby horse of mine than it is Jeff's. But does the routing have a narrative to it? Does it take you through a kind of story that reaches a climax near the end. In the rest of our conversation, Jeff and I dug into a few examples of famous golf course routings and how they embody or sometimes don't embody, those principles. That's next on the school a golf architecture m hm
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