The cover of our July 2022 issue features the par-four seventeenth at Vidauban. Toby Ingleton reports on the major revitalisation project that the Robert Trent Jones II firm has completed at the enigmatic club in the south of France.

The main feature article for this issue sees golf course architects share their thoughts on why sand bunkers are such a prominent part of golf and what makes a good bunkerless hole. Clyde Johnson, Nick Norton, Kurt Bowman, Brandon Johnson, Robin Hiseman, David Williams, Jim Nagle and Jaeger Kovich discuss how architects can design holes without bunkers, while maintaining strategic interest and challenge for golfers.

Adam Lawrence visits Hacienda Alcaidesa on Spain’s Costa del Sol, where Kurt Bowman has rebuilt the Links course. The course occupies a dramatic piece of land next to the sea, and the recent project has seen Bowman create dramatic greens that include a number of spectacular sucker pins.

Elsewhere, Mike Clayton talks with Toby Ingleton about his firm’s new Seven Mile Beach course, which he thinks could become one of the best in Australia. Clayton also discusses his design philosophy, his early career in the industry, and his plans for the future.

Mark Wagner considers whether the anniversaries of the births of Donald Ross and Frederick Law Olmsted will reignite a discussion about a return to golf ’s democratic roots; and Adam Lawrence asks whether the view that par threes are usually perceived to be simple tests of execution rather than requiring a lot of strategy is correct.

Our Tee Box section includes news of Scott Macpherson and Greg Turner adding nine holes at Millbrook Resort in New Zealand; an interview with Jon Hunt of International Design Group about the firm’s comprehensive remodelling of Ingestre Park in Staffordshire, England; Renaissance Golf Design’s restoration of the William Flynn layout at Cherry Hills in Denver, Colorado; and the new PGA Garden course, designed by Greg Norman Golf Course Design, that has opened at PGA NovaWorld Phan Thiet in Vietnam.

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