The correct golf course artchitect response to that is “It’s the next one I’m working on!”.
It’s hard not to have some favourites, because some courses fit our game. I had an ocean side golf course in Thailand that got hit by the Tsunami, which was one of my favourites, and I’ve built a couple in California that are inland courses that I really liked. It’s hard not to add my home course, Crooked Stick.

What I like is the variety and the people. I mean when you get to San Roque, and its a beautiful seaside operation with a beautiful hotel, and managers from Japan that are absolutely magnificent: you’ve got everything from the clubhouse all the way through to the golf course. I really think that like all golfers, it’s the day that we play, the sunshine, the condition of the course. All those things give us the emotion of our favourite golf course.

To me it’s the old style golf course that I grew up on as a child. I’ve got a couple of new projects that I’m working on with some great views of the vineyards in Barcelona. What a terrific place to build a golf course as an American in Barcelona. It is a beautiful town. A lot of what we try to do is incorporate the charisma of the area into our design. We did PGA West which is probably rated as the most difficult course in California. The girls play there on Tuesday and they go around in about three and a half hours because they are playing on the correct tee. Sometimes they get a little bit mad because the men are playing too slow in front of them. It is kind of the opposite of how we visualise it. If we were just building difficult golf courses we would have no market. So inside of our very difficult course is another course that’s playable for Juniors, Women and Seniors.

If you go out and have a bad experience on any of our golf courses or any other golf course, I dare you to go back the next day and move up a set of tees and play the same golf course, and tell me you’ve had another bad experience. Because it won’t happen. After you play from the very difficult position and move to the easier position, all of a sudden that golf course to you will be easier to play, 90% of the time.

Golfers like a challenge…. What they don’t understand, and as an architect you really have to think this through, is if I’m a player that is playing at a distance that is too difficult for me, I typically have to take two woods and a wedge to a par 4. Now that makes it a par 5.

That is usually how women have to play the golf course. So instead of playing women’s golf as a male, why don’t we play professional golf? We’ll move to the very forward tee, and we’ll hit drives and wedges to par 4’s, and we’ll hit every par 5 in two! So our image of ‘I’m gonna play a more difficult course, ‘cause I’m gonna play like the pros”….. no you’re playing like a woman! You wanna play like a pro, go to the red tee!

I talk to people like you! I was on the golf course a few days ago with a British family, and the son was playing from the back women’s tees. Let’s not call them women’s tees. If I were to label it I like to call them front, middle and back – anything to make them nongeneric. I watched him play a hole and said to him “Do you realise there is another tee up there?”. He replied, “No I always play the women’s tee.” I explained that we have another set of tees in front of the women’s tees, and said those are the Junior tees – they are for you. I said specifically, “Those tees are for you”. He then had a big smile on his face, and I watched him play a couple more holes and he was hitting next to the green in two. He could drive about 150 yards, he was about 9 or 10 years old, and all of a sudden that golf course was his.

He had his own tees! Just a different attitude, because I told him that I am the golf course architect and I built these tees for him. I have tees that are built for you
– you just have to find them!

So its a dilemma that you face when constructing the course?

Oh yes, it’s a biggy, it’s a major dilemma. It is what we do everyday to try and make the courses more playable for the customer. Even though we do it our games change with our age, etc. How many times do we have absolutely dreadful experiences when we’re playing with three other really good players and you’re the bad player. It happens to me all the time because I have to play with the gentlemen tour players, and they outdrive me by 70 yards!

Once I was playing with Freddie Couples and he outdrove me through 13 holes by about 100 yards. I think to myself, “I’m not a bad player, but he’s outdriving me by 100 yards!”. He’s hitting completely different clubs than I. Now if I had gone up two or three tees I could have kept up with him. Most of us when we’re playing with a group of friends, we’re not playing in a PGA event! If you’ve got one person whose not so good let them tee it up a couple of times and give them a few free drops out of the scrub, so instead of shooting 120, they shoot 105, it makes it a more delightful day. Golf is a social game and not about having a miserable time.