The Anatomy of a Golf Course: The Art of Golf Architecture

"It is up to the golf architect," writes Ben Crenshaw in his foreword to Tom Doak's fascinating discussion of course design, "to present us with a thinking contest as well as a physical one." Like a puppeteer willing to raise the curtain on the strings he pulls, Doak reveals reveals the secrets of how. The how, as it turns out, is the easy part. It's the demonic thinking behind the whys that makes this so engaging--and useful. Doak's explanation of the ways a good designer has to muck with golfers' minds is truly absorbing, and is the kind of information that better players can embrace and make work for them.