Feed The Ball

Joe Hancock is one of the OG’s of golf course building and shaping, and has worked with the profession’s greatest architects. The list of courses’s he’s helped build is staggering. He joins Jim Urbina and Derek Duncan to discuss how Mike DeVries pulled him into golf design, how his own sense of frugality influences his design outlook, the importance of collaboration in successful design, how the experiential side of golf may be more important than the strategic intentions, the value of creative thought versus using precedent for inspiration and the advice he’d give to younger shapers hoping to have a long career in this industry. Photos: Cover page, Midland Hills(courtesy of the club). Above, Yeamans Hall. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Salon Vol. 32, ft. Joe Hancock appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Architect David Kahn of Jackson Kahn Design comes back to the podcast to update us on his twin daughters afflicted with juvenile Batten disease and the 2026 Take a Swing Fore Batten auction. He also sits in the spotlight to answer questions about the challenges and advantages of building estate courses for private owners (that no other golfers get to see), how he views the contemporary trend of idolizing architecture tropes of the past, how Mike Strantz has influenced his outlook on design, developing the courage to build anything he and Tim Jackson can envision and putting the art of golf course design at the center of his ambitions. Photos: Cover page, Monterey Peninsula Dunes Course (Jon Cavalier). Above, Scottsdale National’s Other Course. Music: “24 Frames” by Jason Isbell. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with David Kahn appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Golf course designer Dave Zinkand joins Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about his work at Bandon Trails and Bandon Preserve with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, what “sympathetic restoration” looks like to him, what Harry Colt and Tom Simpson taught him about using the ground surrounding hazards, establishing name recognition with new clients and the power of having time on your side. Photos: Cover page, Desert Forest (courtesy of the club). Above, Bandon Preserve. Music: “24 Frames” by Jason Isbell. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with Dave Zinkand appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Jim Urbina returns to the podcast, this time back in the guest chair, for a free-flowing discussion about the proliferation of bunkers in contemporary design, the sameness of courses now, whether designers and developers are pushing a vision or emulating others, and how much William Watson he feels he needs to bring back to his remodel of the Ocean Course at Olympic Club in San Francisco. Photos: Cover page, Pasatiempo. Above, Loblolly G.C., Hobe Sounds, Fla. Music: “Photograph,” REM with Natalie Merchant. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 7th hole at Pebble Beach. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 100: Jim Urbina 2 appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Golf designer Jay Blasi comes on the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about the challenges and importance of good public golf, comparing building new holes on top of existing holes versus working new land, the expectations versus outcome of Chambers Bay, the challenge of having to deal with cart paths, the challenge of making it in a tough industry where you’re two calls away from being out of business and much, much more. Photos: Cover page, Lakeside Country Club (Laurie Perez). Above, Poppy Ridge (Poppy Ridge). Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with Jay Blasi appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Ran Morrissett is the founder of GolfClubAtlas.com, the most influential golf architecture website of the past 25 years, which means, of all time. He’s a prolific writer and photographer, a consultant in course designs like The Roost at Cabut Citrus Farms in Florida, the former administrator for Golf Magazine’s top 100 U.S. and World courses, and one of the most eloquent advocates for pure, uncomplicated golf, which means walking courses in quiet environments with an absence of accoutrement or attitude. Ran joins Derek Duncan to discuss golf in quiet places, the possibilities of bunkerless golf courses, the process of building The Roost with three different designers, the challenge of new designers routing courses, the highs and occasional lows of the Golf Club Atlas community and whether we shouldn’t be ranking courses based on experience versus architecture. Photos: Cover page, The Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms (Carolina Pines Golf). Above, Barnbougle Dunes (Penelope Sattler). Music: “The Unguarded Moment,” The Church. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 99: Ran Morrissett appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Jeff Stein began his career shaping courses for Gil Hanse, Tom Doak, Jim Urbina and other designers. Now he has his own business consulting with clubs and a partnership with Brian Ross designing new courses. They recently opened Great Dunes on Jekyll Island in Georgia and are exploring other opportunities. Jeff talks with Derek Duncan about the unpredictability of the equipment available when building courses, combining the Walter Travis architecture at Great Dunes with parts of a Dick Wilson design, the happiest experience he’s had building golf, his unique job at Ohoopee Match Club and the intricacies of Devereaux Emmet. Photos: Cover page, The Seawane Club (Larry Lambrecht). Above, Ohoopee Match Club. Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with Jeff Stein appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Golf architect Todd Eckenrode has built and re-built golf courses up and down California and knows the work of historic architects like Alister MacKenzie, George Thomas, William Watson and Max Behr as well as anyone. He joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss working at and learning to play at Pasatiempo, when to try to “restore” original architecture and when to make alterations, how his outlook on design has changed through time, if public courses can close the conditioning gap on private courses and how the early courses of California evolved into what they’ve become today. Photos: Cover page, Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club (Channing Benjamin). Above, Diablo Country Club. Music: “Los Angeles,” Phosphorescent. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 98: Todd Eckenrode appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Golf course designer and builder Jaeger Kovich, who has shaped projects for Gil Hanse and Tom Doak and now is establishing himself as one of the busiest remodel specialists in the business, joins Golf Digest’s Derek Duncan to answer 24 questions about his views on architecture. Photos: Cover page, The Cradle (Pinehurst Resort). Above, Laurel Links (propergolf.com). Music: “24 Frames,” Jason Isbell. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with Jaeger Kovich appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Architect Tyler Rae is part of the next wave of major golf course designers. He joins Derek Duncan in the hot seat to answer 24 questions about golf, his career and his outlook on design. Photos: Cover page, Old Sawmill (Tyler Rae). Above, Lookout Mountain, 11th hole. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post 24 Questions with Tyler Rae appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Martin Ebert is one of the founding partners, along with Tom Mackenzie, of Mackenzie & Ebert, arguably the top golf design firm in Europe. Ebert has been the lead consulting architect, with Mackenzie, for most of the Open Championship courses as well as dozens of clubs in the U.K., Ireland and Europe. They also have several new courses currently under construction around the world. Ebert joins Derek Duncan to discuss the company’s rise to the upper stratosphere of golf design, his impressions of golf in the U.S., how the cost of building and renovating courses in the U.K. compares to the U.S., the way Mackenzie and Ebert use advanced technology to produce plans, his insistence that green surfaces be constructed down to the most minute details of those plans and the trend of architects build too much contour into their greens. Photos: Cover page, Royal Portrush (mackenzieandebert.com). Above, The Island (mackenzieandebert.com). Outro song: Brendan Benson, “Metairie.” Watch Derek Duncan break down the 16th hole at Cypress Point. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 97: Martin Ebert appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Jerry Pate burst into the golf world when he won the 1976 U.S. Open at Atlanta Athletic Club in just his second year on tour. From 1976 through 1982 when he won the first Players Championship held at the new Pete Dye-designed TPC Sawgrass he was one of the best players in the world, contending in other majors and earning a spot on the 1981 Ryder Cup team. Injuries forced him off the Tour and into other ventures including golf course design, pairing up with luminaries like Bob Cupp and Tom Fazio. He recently completed a major renovation of the Pete Dye masterpiece Teeth of the Dog at Casa de Campo in the D.R. Pate joins the Feed the Ball podcast to talk about the work he’s done at Teeth of the Dog and his longtime connection to the resort, what Dye told him about architecture in 1974, the challenges of building Teeth, the penal aspects of the original TPC course, his short but illustrious television career and his real thoughts about National Golf Links of America. Photos: Cover page, Teeth of the Dog (Enrique Berardi). Above, Kiva Dunes (Kiva Dunes). Outro song: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Alabama Pines.” Watch Derek Duncan break down the original Redan hole at North Berwick. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 96: Jerry Pate appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Trey Kemp has been one of the most active and influential figures in public and municipal golf design in Texas for over 15 years. He spent much of that time working with John Colligan and now has his own firm, continuing to improve public courses while also pursuing new course commissions. He joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss the challenges and opportunities working in the public sphere, what courses have guided his design aesthetic, the value of Tom Fazio, if the Raynor resurgence is played out, the secret sauce to making public golf profitable and what it takes to break into the architectural elite. Photos: Main page, Rockwood Golf Course (credit: fortworthgolf.org); Above, Texas Rangers Golf Club (courtesy of the club). Outro song: Wilco, “How to Fight Loneliness.” Watch Derek Duncan break down the original Redan hole at North Berwick. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 95: Trey Kemp appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Lost Rail Golf Club Bill Kubly is one of the OG’s in golf course architecture. He’s the founder Landscapes Unlimited, of one of golf’s most prominent course construction companies (opened in 1976), and has had a hands-on, up front view of the profession for 50 years. Kubly joins the Feed the Ball podcast to share stories from a long career building golf courses for virtually all of the industry’s architects going back two generations. He talks to Derek Duncan about being a founding investor in Sand Hills Golf Club with Dick Youngscap, the architectural impact of golf in the Sandhills, what firms delivered the cleanest set of blueprints, the difference between contractor bids and design/build, working special projects like Lost Rail with Scott Hoffman and his involvement in the development of Sutton Bay, one of the great sleeper destination clubs in the U.S. Photos: Main page, Sutton Bay (credit: Gary Kellner); Above, Lost Rail (courtesy of the club). Watch Derek Duncan break down the 3rd hole a Oakmont Country Club. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Episode 94: Bill Kubly appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Ron Whitten, historian and former Golf Digest architecture editor, and Mike Davis, former USGA CEO and executive director, delve deep into the origins, evolution and architecture of Oakmont Country Club. We discuss how and why Oakmont developed the way it has, what makes it arguably the greatest championship venue in American golf, what makes the greens so unique and so fast, whether it’s a purely penal design, how Whitten shamed the club into reclaiming their treeless identity in the 1990s and the course’s specific strengths and weaknesses. Photos: Main page, Oakmont CC, First hole; Above, Oakmont’s second hole. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 13th hole at Augusta National. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post The Rap: Oakmont, One of One appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Golf course designer Riley Johns joins Derek and Jim from his home in Canada to fill us in on his latest thoughts on course building and artistry. Johns has been splitting time between his own growing business with partner Keith Rhebb, leading projects for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and even working with Jim on the renovation of St. Charles in Winnipeg, a club with nines by both Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross. We talk about the influence of Stanley Thompson and Thompson’s similarities to MacKenzie, the benefits of unconditional constraints in artistic design, the luxury of improvising in the field, the downside of following recipes and the value of collaborative input vs. intense auteurism. Photos: Main page, Te Arai South, 5th hole (Ricky Robinson); Above, Winter Park 9 Watch Derek Duncan break down the 13th hole at Augusta National. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Salon Vol. 31, ft. Riley Johns appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Augusta National is complicated. It’s the most famous course in the world and has been an architectural and maintenance ideal for decades, even though the design is in a continuing state of flux and the turf and bunker conditions have been far from perfect over its life. If it isn’t what we think it is, and perhaps never was, and if it has passed through numerous very different versions of itself, how can it perennially and for most of its history be considered essentially one thing: arguably the best or second best course in the U.S. and number one on every golfer’s bucket list? Designer, historian and Golf Digest architecture emeritus Ron Whitten, and prolific author David Owen (who wrote the seminal book on the Masters called “The Making of the Masters“) sit with Derek Duncan to hash out all of this and explore the depths of Augusta. The Comprehensive Guide to Every Change at Augusta National. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post The Rap: Augusta Agonistes appeared first on Feed The Ball.

You may have read or heard someone talk about good or bad “tie-ins” on a golf course. It loosely has to do with how the architecture is connected to the land during construction, but the topic is much larger and more nuanced than that. Derek Duncan and Jim Urbina define and discuss tie-ins, what they are, and why doing them correctly is important to the functionality and enjoyment of a golf course. Cover photo: The 4th at Pacific Dunes, built by Jim Urbina. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post Ask/Answer: What is a “Tie-in”? appeared first on Feed The Ball.

Looking ahead to The Players Championship, former PGA Tour player Richard Zokol and designer Jeff Mingay drop in from Canada to break down everything there is to know about The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass (Zokol actually competed on Sawgrass in the 1980s). We get into the history and creation of the course, how it exemplifies Pete Dye’s architectural genius, its influence on golf design, playing the course with 1980s equipment, how the professionals have adapted to it and commentary on its best, worst and most overrated holes. Outro song: “Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd. Watch Derek Duncan break down the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. Subscribe to Feed the Ball on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play Twitter: @feedtheball Instagram: @feedtheball The post The Rap: Dye-secting TPC Sawgrass appeared first on Feed The Ball.