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Mike Clayton Architecture Editor
Golf Australia columnist
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Feature story: This is Royal Troon
This week The Open returns to Royal Troon for the 10th time across its 152-year history. While not as popular with the tourists as some of the other glamour courses across Scotland, this layout’s claim to fame is the mental challenge it presents to those brave enough to take it on.
16 Jul 2024
The evolution (and future) of Australian golf
The most significant thing to happen to Australian golf was not Adam Scott winning The Masters. Nor was it Peter Thomson winning five Opens in Britain or Greg Norman carrying the Australian Tour in the 1980s and 1990s.
13 Dec 2023
Clayton: The brilliance of the Old Course
Peter Thomson long argued The Old Course at St. Andrews was the game’s most important course and all others are mere copies.
12 Jul 2022
Clayton: Designing in the field
Normally a brief from a golf club or a client to a golf course architect is reasonably extensive. Something of an exception was Richard Sattler, the Barnbougle owner who simply told Tom Doak and I – “I don’t care what you do – just don’t screw it up.”
8 Jul 2022
Clayton: The Makings Of A Top-100 Course
Golf courses are lots of things to lots of people and ranking them in some sort of rational order is fraught given the emotions golf courses engender are not always rational.
15 Mar 2022
Clayton: Remembering everyone’s mate ‘Shears’
This week the Australian PGA begins at Royal Queensland, but it will do so with heavy hearts as everyone remembers Bob Shearer, the champion of 1983. ‘Shears’ died suddenly on Sunday, aged only one over the par at Royal Melbourne.
10 Jan 2022
Clayton: Hard golf doesn't always equal good golf
One of the game’s great misconceptions is to equate an arduous golf course or a particularly difficult hole with good golf.
8 Sep 2021
CLAYTON: A Question of Strategy
Great golf holes afford players of all standards the opportunity to test their skills against the questions being asked by the design. How you answer those questions isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
27 Apr 2021
CLAYTON: How Augusta could be better
Augusta National is the course on every golfer’s bucket list. But it’s evolution away from the original creation of Alister MacKenzie and Bob Jones has been to its detriment. Here’s how the home of the Masters could be an even better course.
6 Apr 2021
Clayton: Australia’s Scottish lesson
“At least 25 percent of the golf courses need to be converted into mountain bike trails. The rest can be used for walks and picnics, off-leash dog runs, boot camps and community veggie gardens. Maybe keep one for posterity.”
21 Oct 2020
Course Design: Beyond COVID
From the golf courses played on the game’s biggest pro Tours to interesting short courses and the public layouts in our biggest urban centres, the architectural quality of those layouts in a post-COVID golfing world will be important for the game and the environment.
7 Oct 2020
The Architects’ Series: Legacy of the Morcoms
Mick Morcom and his son, Vern, were this country’s most pre-eminent greens keepers for more than half a century, but their influence on course design and construction remain today.
19 Mar 2020
The beautiful mind behind the creation of Royal Melbourne
Dr Alister MacKenzie never saw his completed Royal Melbourne design, which will host its third Presidents Cup matches this month. But the ‘Good Doctor’ would be delighted his creation is equally fun and challenging for the game’s greats and not so great players.
10 Dec 2019
Course Design: Fantastic Fives
Par-5s aren’t what they used to be, at least in the way they are played at the top echelons of the game. But as Golf Australia Architecture Editor Mike Clayton explains, Australia still has a bunch of first-class long holes no one would ever describe as ‘nondescripts’.
13 Sep 2019
Course Design: Two-Shot Stars
Two-shot holes – whether they are medium to long par-4s or short par-5s – make up the majority of holes we all play. Golf Australia Architecture Editor Mike Clayton explains what separates the great from the good and reveals a host of Australia’s best.
17 Jul 2019
Course Design: Short Fours
Golf Australia Architecture Editor Mike Clayton dissects the qualities of what makes a great short par-4 and reveals some of the best in the game can be found here in Australia.
4 Jul 2019
Course design: The joy of 3s
One-shot holes are golf’s great leveller, where professionals and high handicappers can find success. What are some of the greatest par-3s in the nation? Golf Australia Architecture Editor Mike Clayton casts his eye across the best and what makes them better than others.
18 Jun 2019
CLAYTON: Brown is good
If you are living in a part of Australia that is drought-affected or under water restrictions, chances are you could be playing on firm, fast-running brown fairways this summer.
6 Nov 2018
Clayton: Bunkers 101
Believe it or not, bunkers are not scattered across a golf course simply to make your life a misery. The great designers used them to improve the strategy of their creations, but, as Mike Clayton points out here, not all bunkering is good and often it can be misplaced to make a hole more difficult.
26 Jul 2018
CLAYTON: It’s time we learned to adapt
If the axe is to fall over some city golf courses, it should be the aim to make better, more interesting layouts with the land that remains – no matter how long or short or how hard or easy the courses become.
21 Mar 2018
Unpredictable design = better golf
Target golf is boring golf. The more unpredictable courses are for players, the more interesting the game is to play, argues Mike Clayton.
3 Aug 2016
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