Drawing the Line

Here’s how you get the attention of golfers: Near the end of the Tiger Woods-David Duval national prime-time television match-play event, Duval’s drive splits the middle of the fairway at Sherwood Country Club and his ball smacks up against a rock the size of a Winnebago.

Yes, that’s right. A boulder. In the middle of the fairway.

Now, who put that thing there?

Well, the guy who did it happens to be Jack Nicklaus, maybe the greatest golfer of all time and in another life, probably the most successful golf course designer of all time.

So, a rock in the middle of the fairway . . . good idea or bad?

“Jack’s little concoction,” Woods said with a smile.

It’s possible Woods has played the Nicklaus course at PGA West, where there is another big rock in front of the green at one of the holes. Another concoction. Maybe he has played the Stadium Course, designed by Pete Dye, which features so many railroad ties, it would make the Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe jealous.

That’s the way it goes with golf course architecture, the land of the fearless and the home of the brave, where players and former players try to squelch their own egos while they churn out courses as if they were signing scorecards, and the place where schooled architects draw lines and sketch layouts and try to keep up with the demand as well as the competition.

Actually, the whole business is a bit overwhelming, which is sort of like the numbers that Nicklaus Design puts up.

Nicklaus’ second career began in 1966 when famed designer Dick Wilson arrived at Nicklaus’ home course of Scioto in Columbus, Ohio, for a redesign. Nicklaus quickly appointed himself as Wilson’s assistant.

Three years later, Nicklaus and Dye teamed up to do Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, S.C., and the blueprints have been flying since. For Nicklaus Design, the figures are staggering: 166 courses in 24 countries, 97 in the U.S., 35 under construction, 18 ranked in the top 100.

There is no question where design ranks in his list of priorities, either.

“What started out as a special interest and hobby has turned into a major part of my business now,” Nicklaus said. “There’s no feeling like walking up the 18th fairway at a major, but the satisfaction I get in designing a golf course from the ground is a close second.”

Not to mention the satisfaction of collecting a fee of roughly $1.5 million, which includes seven visits to the new site by the man himself.

The standard fee for most of the other big-name designers, such as Arnold Palmer and Greg Norman, is about $1 million. But Nicklaus gets more than any other designer-player, not necessarily because his plans are that superior, but because developers believe he is superior in his ability to sell the real estate that surrounds the golf course.

Predictably, with such sums at stake, the competition for jobs in the design business can be fierce. As a result, the race for work and for reputations can often pit player-designer against player-designer, not to mention player-designer against architect.

You can easily see why the sides are at odds. The players can contend that the architects never played the pro game. The architects can claim that the players couldn’t draw a straight line if you spotted them a ruler and a pencil.

Nicklaus is the only player-designer who has been allowed as a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. In the meantime, the number of players who are getting into the design business appears to include nearly everyone who has ever held a golf club.

Recently, Glen Day began his design business. Day has one PGA Tour victory in his six-year career. At least Tom Lehman, who has started his design company, has won a major.

You can see why the golf course architects could be upset. As it stands, it’s sort of an uneasy truce.

“I don’t resent anybody, I’m happy,” Robert Trent Jones Jr. said. “But I do not think the so-called player-architects do great work. When they team with an architect, such as Ben Crenshaw with Bill Coore, they do fair work. Not until they combine do they take it up a notch to fair.”

So there you go. Jones has designed more than 150 courses around the world and prides himself on his stances on modern, environmental golf course architecture.

Jones, a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects since 1966, designed the Links at Spanish Bay and Poppy Hills on the Monterey Peninsula.

He said if there is a danger that newly called architects may find themselves drawn to-- player-designers included--it is that they design courses that are too intensely personal.

“They tend to design around their own game, the strengths of their own game,” Jones said. “I know I had to fight that. Nicklaus, for instance, if you hit high fades, the setup which features a bailout on the right. I think that’s wrong, I find it, let me say, very repetitive. It’s like repetitive music. Boring. Never changing.”

In this field, it’s hardly boring anymore.

Crenshaw has his hands pretty full these days, juggling his playing career with his duties as Ryder Cup captain and his design business. Long interested in architecture, Crenshaw doesn’t see why there should be questions about who designed a course, only how it turns out.

“Economics dictate the whole business,” Crenshaw said. “The architecture, who did it makes it viable, that should not be the point, really. Your work should be the determining factor.”

Yes, who puts in the work and how that works turns out, that’s the bottom line. Or is the bottom line the bottom line?

Hale Irwin is the best player on the Senior PGA Tour, and his golf course design business reflects his competitive status. After he won his fifth senior tour event since May, Irwin prepared to play the PGA Championship last week by spending the entire time working in his design business offices in Phoenix and St. Louis.

Hey, business is business and Irwin’s is busting out all over. He has done 25 so far with five more in progress, aided by two architects and a design associate. There never was any question in Irwin’s mind that he would get into this gig when the time was right.

“In my 40s, I was in a position where I thought, ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my career?’ ” Irwin said. “The senior tour was still a few years away, I had lost a little bit of fire in my belly, so what was my alternative?”

Course design, of course. Irwin prides himself on designing courses that take what nature gives him and making it work for a challenging, but fair, layout.

“It’s easy to make a hard golf course,” he said. “To make a course that properly challenges and rewards is tough. I don’t believe in monuments to myself.

“Who are the best player-designers? I think Ben Crenshaw has done a remarkable job. And the players, as a whole, have the idea of shot value down better than most architects. That doesn’t necessarily correlate into a great golf course. We don’t have the technical expertise that an architect has. That’s why I have architects on the staff.

“Some golf courses, you see ego all over the place, like building a monument to themselves. Look, I don’t think any of us have said we’re architects. I would say designers. I can sit here and wave my arms and my staff knows what I mean.”

Irwin might also wave his arms when the player-designer doesn’t put in the time on his courses. This is a no-no, he said, because it reflects poorly on everybody else in the business.

“I draw a line when somebody throws their name on something,” he said. “I’ll speak only for myself, but I’m involved from the very beginning. That’s why I’m in the business, not to throw my name on something and pick up the money.”

Palmer’s design enterprise has produced more golf courses than anyone. If they were passing out awards for sheer numbers--not to mention splendid courses--Palmer would surely be right near the top.

Along with partner Ed Seay, the Palmer Course Design Co. has given birth to than 200 courses all over the world. There are 65 Palmer designs under construction.

Seay said there is no particular Palmer philosophy about golf course design . . . with the possible exception of make-sure-the-cell-phone-battery-

is-always-charged-up-because-we’re-frying-the-

darned-thing-every-day.

“We’re just always trying to make golf courses that everybody can have a good time on,” he said. “The game is challenging enough. We do not set out to make difficult courses. Nor do we have a trademark, a design feature. Except for fun.”

To make sure the joy continues, Palmer employs nine designers who have only one mandate from the boss: stay within the environment and make it fun.

Palmer turns 70 next month, which means his competitive days on the course are going to be fewer and his competitive days in the highly competitive design business probably are going to number a lot more.

“As time goes on, I’m sure I’ll be spending even more time on design,” Palmer said. “It’s the closest thing to playing. It’s creating something you can look at. It’ll be there forever.”

And by the looks of the way things are going, so will the idea of more and more players designing courses.

“Hell, when we started out, there were only a few of us,” Palmer said. “Now, everybody is doing it. I don’t think there’s any feeling of animosity between the players and the architects. It’s just everybody doing their jobs.”

Well, maybe, says Tom Weiskopf. One of the most widely respected players-turned-designers, Weiskopf partnered with Jay Morrish for 10 years and produced 26 courses, a number of them terrific works, including his favorite--Loch Lomond near Glasgow, Scotland.

Weiskopf, who has done eight courses on his own, now has five courses under construction. He said he is not technically trained, but that he can sketch a little bit. He also said he understands why there might be a little strained relationship between player-designers and architects.

“There’s a little bit of rub--I don’t want to use animosity,” he said. “They went to school, trained, got a degree in golf course architecture, but they haven’t been players. A lot of players only put their names on their courses. That’s why there’s been the rub. I really don’t put myself in that category. I quit playing at 40, basically. I am very involved and have been--probably more involved than some of these architects.”

Weiskopf now works with Phil Smith, who used to work on Nicklaus’ design staff.

“Nothing comes easy in this business, but there is plenty of room for everybody,” he said. “My only concern is that each golf course that’s being built is good for golf. That reflects on everybody.

“You design a golf course, it’s not going away. You go away real quick as a player. You’re leaving something other than a record or a moment in time. It’s a work of art, just in a living form.”

It’s a nice sentiment and maybe it’s even true, although most would argue that some courses seem a lot more alive than others. Especially the ones that have those magnetic boulders in the middle of the fairway that draw your golf ball to them. Or those lakes with the open arms. Or those bunkers that always look hungry.

For these golf course designs, no apology is needed, no matter who’s drawing the lines and putting their names on them, either players or architects. Hey, it’s a business.