Customer Reviews

Secrets of the Great Golf Course Architects: A Treasury of the World's Greatest Golf Courses by History's Master Designers

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What the book actually contains is a large collection of short anecdotes from and a few interviews with ASGCA members. While a few of them are plain boring the vast majority offer interesting insights into the actual work of golf architects, the problems encountered by them in their work and some of their more unusual assignments (e.g. building a course within a few weeks for Ferdinand Marcos' birthday). The "problem stories" mostly rank around "unconventional" travel (quite interesting), dangerous creatures (not so interesting) and ignorant non-golfing clients (fascinating that some people commission golf courses without having any clue about the game). A few of the architects also offer interesting views on their design philosophy.

The illustrations include many nice sketches and drawings as an example for many a contributor's work, however they are left without much explanation and don't have to do anything with the text.

If you want to learn about architecture there are better books out there and the contents of this one cannot really be considered "secrets" (rarely told stories would be a more accurate take). All in all this still makes an eclectic and very nice read, however it's certainly not mandatory reading for architecture enthusiast, which probably makes it a great gift for this kind of people - chances are that thus they don't have it already.

This book is not a "treasury of the world's greatest golf courses." It is one to two page stories interspersed with glossy pictures. While the majority of the stories are entertaining to read, they provide little insight into golf course architecture or design. This is not a "how-to" book at all. There are no great secrets divulged. Most of the stories recount the various, now supposedly "history's greatest designers," brushes with disaster, great golf heroes, or circumstances encountered while much lower down the architect totem pole working in different design firms.

A decent read, but I wouldn't include it in a must have list for aspiring golf course architects.

This book is quite disappointing for me as far as being of any alleged value as an interesting read or an informative text re the secrets (and / or concepts) of golf course design and probably more particularly so due to its connection with the association of golf course architects - IMHO it is allegedly pretty much just a series of antedotal stories; possibly mixed with some tall tales and a few vaguely interesting experiences, with a bit of personal history and ego type backgrounds of many of those with their "Names" featured in it - disappointing in its content and with an allegedly misleading title, it could have been so much better had it been filled up with some good suggestions or useful design tips and tricks from the experienced and undoubted "whose who" of American golf course architecture and design - depending on what you are looking for you may possibly enjoy it, but my copy will be up on ebay next week for $1

I recieved the book in a timely manner, which I appreciated, however 99% of the time that I order from Amazon and the condition is described as "Used, good as new" the merchandise is in very good condition. This book's binder was in flimsy condition and began to fall apart the day it got here! It was a gift for my husband and he showed me how he had to tape up the binder to hold the book together! I was very surprised and unhappy about that and would like to exchange the book for another of the same kind, or get credit to put towards another book of equal or greater value! I'm now leary about ordering things that have been used, whereas before I trusted the description completely and had never been disappointed.