By Design – Issue 51, Winter 2020

18 “I’ve gained an appreciation for the engineered or squared–up character of Macdonald and Raynor’s designs” DESIGN HEROES integrating architectural elements from famous holes and designers. “I’ve always found it intriguing how Macdonald and Raynor were able to take the basic strategic principles of Macdonald’s ideal holes and adapt them to a specific site,” says Smith. “Rather than exact replicas, they are unique adaptations. In a way, this is what every architect does. They take ideas and experiences from the different courses they’ve visited and store them in a memory bank to be applied in their own unique way to a design somewhere down the line. Sometimes, that is the incorporation of a template hole, but it can be something as simple as how a swale or ridge drags into a green surface. “I’ve gained an appreciation for the engineered or squared-up character of Macdonald and Raynor’s designs, finding that it provides a certain simplicity that has a timeless character about it.” Smith’s recent restoration work at Westmoreland CC in Illinois takes its cue from Macdonald and Raynor’s Chicago Golf Club and nearby Shoreacres. “By emulating their trench-like bunker style, we were able to create a dramatic transformation at Westmoreland where the bunkers now complement the other Golden Age characteristics of the layout,” said Smith. “The result is a course that gives players a feeling of stepping back in time.” Macdonald’s quest for the ideal course culminated with his layout for The Lido Golf Club on Long Island, constructed at a huge cost and described after its 1917 opening by golf writer Bernard Darwin as “the finest course in the world.” But the Great Depression brought about an early demise and the land was sold for development, consigning the course to the status of golf ’s most famous lost design. The now almost mythical Lido has inspired many, including Gil Hanse, ASGCA, who has completed a recreation of the layout for the Ban Rakat Club in Thailand. “Normally we feel strongly that a golf course should be the product of its surrounds,” said Hanse. “But in the back of our minds, my partner Jim Wagner and I have often wondered what we would do with a completely flat site – what can you do to distinguish it? The most famous example of a manufactured golf course from the Golden Age was The Lido. Jim and I had always wanted to do a Macdonald/Raynor, angular grass-faced bunker design. We pitched the idea to the owner at