The January 2023 issue of Golf Course Architecture magazine is out now.

The Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club in New Zealand, photographed by Gary Lisbon, features on the cover of the new issue of Golf Course Architecture. The club was created following the merger of neighbours Royal Auckland GC and The Grange GC, each of which had an 18-hole course. Chris Cochran of Nicklaus Design has now completed a new 27-hole layout, with three contrasting but complementary nines, as well as new practice facilities.

In this issue we also ask: what level of bad golf can an architect be expected to design for? We constantly hear how course designers have created a layout to accommodate players of all abilities, but is there a limit to how low they should go: a point at which making a course even more playable is no longer practical and/or desirable? Golf course architects including Adrian Stiff, Phil Smith, Ron Forse, Robin Hiseman, Kurt Bowman and Tom Doak provide their thoughts.

Adam Lawrence visits The Addington in London, England, which is undergoing a transformation by the Clayton, DeVries & Pont design firm. We also profile Old Chatham in North Carolina, a ‘players club’ that has been renovated by Rees Jones and his associate Greg Muirhead.

He may have just turned 90, but Ron Kirby is still working. He has just finished overseeing the rebuild of the Apes Hill course in Barbados, and talks with GCA about his career in the golf design business.

Elsewhere, we hear Mike Clayton’s thoughts on the Dark Ages of British golf; our Tee Box section includes news of the Gil Hanse-designed Ballyshear Golf Links that has opened at Ban Rakat Club in Thailand; we speak with Tom Marzolf of Fazio Design about the Cypress course renovation at Bonita Bay Club in Florida; and we hear from Jeff Howes about his new layout near Bucharest, Romania.

The January 2023 issue of Golf Course Architecture also comes with our GCA Green Pages 2023 supplier directory, which includes profiles of potential partners for your next golf design project. There are also project overviews from Art Schaupeter, Blinder Bunker, Laughing Waters, Rain Bird, Turf Irrigation Services, WAC Golf and ZLine Bunker Systems.

We hope you enjoy the read!

View the digital edition of the January 2023 issue of Golf Course Architecture

View the digital edition of GCA Green Pages 2023

Subscribe to the printed edition of Golf Course Architecture