The Epic School of Golf Course Design
Background photo: Royal County Down, the world’s most Epic course.
Introduction
As with pretty much every aspect of the game, there's no one right way to design a golf course.
in fact the variety experienced by playing a number of courses is a huge part of what makes the sport so enjoyable for every golfer. But over the course of my +/- 30-year infatuation with golf—more so in the last 20 of those years than in the previous 10—I've developed a fairly well-defined lens through which I view every course I play, and by which I judge the success of the design.
In his seminal work Grounds for Golf, Geoff Shackelford discusses six schools of design: the Natural, the Penal, the Strategic, the Heroic, the Freeway, and the Framing.
The goal of this website is to assert and celebrate the existence of a seventh design school: the Epic.
I hope that the following distinctions, each of which will be fleshed out fully in the coming months and years, will help the reader get a handle on the characteristics of this school.
Epic Golf IS...
A Passion
At Ease with the Amateur and the Anonymous
Honest and Intimidating
Muscular, Vigorous, and at Times Raw
Manifest and Inevitable
Grand but Intimate
Adventurous and Thrilling
Responsive to Course Management
Demanding Off the Tee
Exhausting and Satisfying
Partial to the Vintage
Innately Appealing
Memorable; Laden with Character
Epic Golf IS NOT...
A Business
Driven by the Professional and the Ego
Gimmicky or Deliberately Uncomfortable
Flabby, Anorexic, or Delicate
Contrived or Conspicuously Cerebral
Wasteful and Sprawling
Bland and Insipid
Defined by Strategy
Charitable with Its Tee Shots
Soothing and Facile
Excited by the Contemporary
Reliant on Scenery
Spectacularly Ordinary
Looking out over the dunes of Cruden Bay
While I have no formal training in earthmoving, drainage, agronomy, or environmental concerns, neither did many of history's most successful golf course architects...they simply found people who did have expertise in those areas to help them accomplish their vision.
"The fact that golf courses are interactive--they are built to be played--gives the golfer special license to criticize."-- Tom Doak, The Anatomy of a Golf Course
What I do have is a passion and an appreciation for architectural history and architectural criticism--and not just for golf courses. (It was almost more than a passion. I went to grad school in architecture for a year before deciding that it wasn't my field, and I'm still generally disposed to most design topics.)
The 16th at Ballybunion
Architecture and golf architecture similar in that they are both experiential. I couldn't agree more with Tom Doak's quote above. And I hope Doak will not mind when I inevitably criticize his own work in future articles on this site!
I don't by any means profess that Epic characteristics comprise the only lens through which to evaluate course design. But it is my firm opinion that the game would be even more addictive for the vast majority of golfers if more architects considered these criteria in their designs.
--David Mihm
September 2009
updated June 2023