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(Note: read Part 1 here.)
The financial turmoil of the late 2000s wiped trillions of dollars out of the global economy and put millions of people out of their jobs and even their homes. The golf industry suffered along with all others, with more than 2,000 courses closing from 2009 to 2022, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Upheaval brings change in business and the arts. Lean years tend to inspire great work from the creative individuals who stick at their craft. Although many golf course architects saw their businesses dry up and some left the profession altogether, many who remained would produce outstanding work - a handful of new projects as well as all sorts of alterations to existing courses, from subtle nips and tucks to full-teardown renovations and historic restorations.
After rapid growth of flashy new private clubs before the Recession, the 2010s greatly benefited the public golfer. Some prominent resorts continued to come into their own while others emerged in far-flung places, often iterating on the Bandon Dunes model. Many developers contracted the same architects who helped put Bandon on the map, and aspects of the classical style of golf the Oregon resort helped reintroduce to America began to feature elsewhere.
Pre-Pandemic golf course architecture: Doing more with less
Though they had already become known as some of the best architects of the era, Tom Doak, Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw, Gil Hanse & Jim Wagner and David McLay Kidd saw their stars rise even higher as they produced much of the best work of the 2010s, often on sandy and otherwise naturally gifted tracts of land. Rugged bunkering, expansive and often boldly contoured greens and wide fairways encouraging strategic play to carefully considered approach angles began to supplant the narrower, more relentlessly rigorous courses of the previous eras.
Headline architects' longtime associates began to take on projects of their own, too. Some of the most exciting golf architecture of the period came from these lesser-knowns, working on shoestring budgets in smaller communities, proving that superior golf doesn't need to be more expensive than pedestrian golf.
The rising influence of the prevailing group of architects and new economic realities changed the way many golf courses were built, as well as designed. The previous model, where courses would be designed on drafting tables and in C.A.D. programs before being handed over to contractors, ebbed in favor of a design-and-build paradigm that broke down this barrier. Architects and shapers would spend months on site, overseeing the build and making important design decisions not on paper but in dirt. This approach was already beginning to re-emerge before the Recession, and it continued to take off through the 2010s.
A mix of creativity and utilitarianism spawned alternative types of golf experiences. Short courses popped up at remote resorts and in busy cities. Some properties dispensed with the typical 9- or 18-hole loops, fitting odder numbers of holes onto whatever land they had carved out. A few experiments that took place in this period have influenced the current post-pandemic era.
One place where noticeable investment in golf courses did happen was at the municipal level. Several cities and counties recognized the potential community assets they had neglected in the form of often classic local courses, leveraging the talents of hungry architects who needed the work and had the expertise to spare. In Richmond, Va., Davis Love III's design group took a city-owned former PGA Championship host facility and segmented Belmont Golf Course into a 12-hole regulation routing, a 6-hole par-3 loop and an 18-hole putting course. In Hartford, Conn., Matt Dusenberry overhauled long-overlooked Keney Park Golf Course by vamping on original architect Devereux Emmet's eccentric style. In southeastern New Mexico, Andy Staples took his "Community Links" concept from paper to grass at Rockwind Community Links for the town of Hobbs. Several other projects in this interval came together to fuel a golf "Munaissance" in America that continues to this day.
5 courses that represent the pre-pandemic era in golf architecture
Harbor Shores
Benton Harbor, Mich.
Jack Nicklaus (2010)
Harbor Shores is something of a pivot-point among Nicklaus golf courses. Like many of his earlier works, it is challenging - sometimes relentlessly so. But when allowed to make room for players to play, it tries to break free of the old paradigm, choosing instead to wow golfers with green contours like those found at the 10th, where the Golden Bear famously, good-naturedly upstaged Johnny Miller on the course's opening day by holing a long up-and-over putt traversing multiple tiers.
Sand Valley Golf Course
Nekoosa, Wisc.
Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw (2016)
It's funny to say now, but Sand Valley seemed slightly risky when it began to emerge as a follow-up to Bandon Dunes. Yes, its 12,000 central-Wisconsin acres are full of sandy soil, but would the lack of an ocean keep golfers from making the journey? Coore & Crenshaw made sure the answer would be a resounding "no" with an adventurous, pitch-perfect 18 holes that start from a hilltop perch before looping down and back up twice, including a parade of fun, firm, thought-provoking holes in between. The drivable par-4 9th and the long par-3 17th with its huge punchbowl green are exemplary holes of the era.
Streamsong Black
Bowling Green, Fla.
Gil Hanse & Jim Wagner (2017)
Tom Doak's Blue and Coore & Crenshaw's Red courses had already cemented Streamsong's reputation as a must-see Florida golf resort, but Hanse & Wagner took things to another level with the Black. Putting surfaces of almost unfathomable size and contour, huge fairways and sandy blowouts are sometimes as disorienting to look at as they are engaging to play through. Not everything works - the roly-poly fun from tee to green doesn't really happen in the summer - but the sheer ambition of some of the features and holes make it special.
Big Cedar Lodge (Mountain Top)
Ridgedale, Mo.
Gary Player (2017)
Can you have a thoroughly satisfying golf experience over the course of 13 par-3 holes? At Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris' outdoor paradise, the answer is yes. Mountain Top is an invigorating walk up and over the top of a ridge with a nice range of hole distances and some spectacular views. Limestone formations leer over a few greens, adding striking striated browns to the emerald fairways and greens and white bunker sands.
Winter Park Golf Course
Winter Park, Fla.
Renovation: Riley Johns & Keith Rhebb (2016)
No loop of nine holes enjoyed a greater rise in popularity through the latter half of the 2010s than the neighborhood-oriented friendly confines in Orlando's northern suburbs known as the Winter Park 9. Riley Johns and Keith Rhebb, who have been key parts of Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw's team for years, took a tired but historic community 2,400-yard muni and wrung every last ounce of interest out of it, expanding and adding clever contours to greens whose defending chunked-out bunker forms match the backdrop of mature live oaks, fine old homes and busy streets (plus a cemetery) beautifully. At a total cost of less than $2 million, Winter Park and its golfers received incredible value for their invested dollar.
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