Tom Doak

- Angus Murray

I got interested in golf course architecture because I was fascinated there was such a difference between the little public course I grew up playing – Sterling Farms in Connecticut – and the courses I’d go to with my dad when he went to conventions. Some of the very first courses I saw were Harbour Town, Pinehurst, Pebble Beach... quite a bit different from Sterling Farms! Somewhere between Harbour Town and Pebble Beach I thought to myself, “I really love this”.

I play off 11. The lowest I’ve been is four, which is low enough to know I’d never make it as a player. When I was 15, I knew I wasn’t going to pursue it, so architecture was the next best thing – a way to be involved in golf and in the parts of golf that really appealed to me. It turns out it was actually a better thing.

At college in upstate New York it was snowy all winter so there was no golf, just lectures and darkness. I wrote a ton of letters to people in the golf business asking “What would you do if you were me?” I got so much help. Other people my age were interested in golf course architecture – and a bunch are in the business now – but none of them wrote a letter to Ben Crenshaw asking for advice. I got to spend time with all of them, talked about design and what courses I should go see.