39 Right, ‘Devil’s Cauldron at Banff Springs GC’, Ian Andrew, 2025 (Image: Ian Andrew) Above, ‘North Berwick’s The Pit’, Thad Layton, c2000 (Image: Thad Layton Design) Just like highly acclaimed golf courses, visuals are important. The strategies and math of design are extremely critical, but if the visuals fall short, most people aren’t attracted to the scene or environment in the same manner. We all love looking at beautiful, inspiring things. I look at my artwork the same way. Shapers seem to really love a perspective sketch to shape from as opposed to a plan view: it helps them see more of the third dimension that is in our brains.” Canadian architect Ian Andrew has drawn in pencil for many years but is a more recent convert to paint. “I started drawing landscapes by hand at university, in pencil only,” he says. “I did illustrate some work when I was with Doug Carrick, but producing Photoshop images was so much faster. I only began painting in watercolour in 2020. My golf paintings are OK, but some of my other work is better. I paint for fun – I know what I will do in retirement!” And there is at least one man who became a golf designer purely through his artwork. David Hoekstra was runner-up in the 2009 Alister MacKenzie Lido competition, which for many years has invited anyone to submit renderings of proposed hole designs, in the same way as Dr MacKenzie did when the original contest was run by Country Life magazine back in 1914. Hoekstra’s elder brother saw the competition advertised and nudged his brother to enter. In 2011, he won the contest; he did so again in 2018, and in 2022 he started Hoekstra Golf Design. “I distinctly remember drawing golf courses, and designing holes, around the words in our church bulletin as a kid,” he says. “I’ve been around golf my whole life, between playing junior golf, high school golf, playing in college, being a superintendent for three years, my kids playing golf, and now hopefully building a career in architecture. The turning point for me was 2009, and a nudge from my older brother to submit an entry for the Lido competition. I honestly knew nothing about it, but it definitely caught my attention. That year, I ended up being the runner-up, and I fell in love with the competition. In 2011, with a design that had to essentially be played backwards, I had the honour of winning and was invited to attend the annual gathering at Claremont CC in Oakland, California. I met Ron Whitten, Jim Urbina and Brian Costello, that year’s judge. It was my first time playing a MacKenzie design, and I was absolutely blown away. Claremont, at roughly 6,000 yards, was probably the most difficult course I’ve
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