Golf Course Architecture: Design, Construction & Restoration

Described as "the modern bible of golf architecture," this text distills Dr. Hurdzan's 30 years of knowledge and experience into one source. Beautifully illustrated with 326 color photographs, and 80 course maps and drawings, it chronicles all facets of designing, building, renovating and restoring a golf course.

This single source provides a wealth of understandable and useful information on golf architecture from its earliest beginnings with Old Tom Morris to modern architectural design. Its readable style and varied illustrations make it a perfect reference for golf enthusiasts, green committees, green chairman, builders and developers, as well as superintendents, golf professionals and course managers.

Dr. Hurdzan reveals both the art and science of golf course architecture, and takes you inside the designer's mind as he leads you through each step in designing a golf green, golf hole and golf course. Dr. Hurdzan explains the roots of ugliness and sources of beauty, how the landscape communicates, and the recreational process that inexorably links the golfer to the golf course.

Golf Course Architecture is also practical in nature. It explains tee, green and bunker construction, turfgrass establishment ad maturation, as well as drainage and irrigation trends and techniques. Dr. Hurdzan is refreshingly frank in his discussion of golf and the environment and golf course improvement and restoration.

Recognized by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America for its value to the profession, profits from this timeless text will support the GCSAA Foundation for its valuable support of research, scholarship, historical preservation and environmental awareness. If the golf course is important to you this book is must reading.

Michael Hurdzan (b. 1943) is one of America's most respected golf course designers. A past president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, he holds a Ph.D. in environmental plant physiology studies from the University of Vermont. His firm, based in Columbus, Ohio, has designed over 150 new courses in North America and internationally, and has remodeled dozens of other layouts throughout the United States. A frequent speaker at turfgrass, golf, and land planning symposia, he is the author of the widely circulated monograph, Evolution of the Modern Green, and is acknowledged as a innovator in design techniques for lowering construction costs and improving maintainability of golf courses. He is a noted authority on the environmental impacts of golf courses, where at Harvard School of Design he teaches a two-day summer seminar on that topic. He has contributed to books on the subject, and has his Widow's Walk course selected at the first national environmental demonstration project for golf course development.
Dr. Hurdzan is also Colonel Hurdzan, who recently retired from the United States Army Special Forces Reserve program. He spent 23 years in command of Special Forces (Green Beret), Infantry, and Psychological Operations units, where he became an acknowledged expert and instructor in survival techniques and guerrilla warfare. His idea of excitement used to be parachuting onto a pitch black drop zone, with 90 pounds of combat gear, to run a clandestine operation. Now his hobby is just racing sports cars.