Music plays.
Bill is outside, looking through a laser rangefinder.
Bill Coore: In my experience, golf course design is way more about editing than authoring.
Throughout, Bill is in an office or out on a golf course. And dramatic aerial views show the Bandon Dunes course, the Sheep Ranch course, ocean waves on the rocky coastline, the nearby hills and cliffs, and birds flying.
Onscreen text:
Charles Schwab Presents
Bill: My name is Bill Coore, and I’m a golf course architect.
On screen text:
The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Bill Coore
Bill: We’re at Bandon Dunes, on the coast of Oregon—one of the most amazing golf complexes in the world. We’re about to begin work on a new project a little further north on the coast of Bandon, a new course known as the Sheep Ranch.
It was a property that about 18 years ago had some work done on it to create sort of an undefined golf experience that included a number of greens and just natural contours that were there that people could go play and make up their own holes. It’s taken on almost a mythological aura during those years, so very few people have seen it.
It’s amazing when people see this landscape from a distance or from altitude, the first impression is it’s completely flat. When you’re out in it, walking, you realize it’s anything but flat. It’s some of the most magnificent contours for golf that you could hope to see. Yes, they’re not as dramatic as the Pacific Dunes course here at Bandon Dunes. But in its way, this is different from all the other courses and just absolutely ideal for golf.
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What is the site?
What potential does it have?
Bill: When we are approached about any project, the questions that come to our minds are: What is the site? What potential does it have to create interesting, enjoyable golf?
My design partner for over 30 years now, Ben Crenshaw, and I, we go to a site to let the site guide us, to tell us what to do.
As you start to study the site, some things are obvious. Anyone who’s ever played golf could come here and say, "Oh, I can see a golf hole going along the ocean." But some things not so obvious, you need to walk and get a sense of what the site offers.
Pages of hand-drawn plans for the Sheep Ranch course flash by in quick succession.
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You need to walk and get a sense of what the site offers.
Bill: This is just an initial thought. It’s a par 3. They would either play almost directly downwind, or directly into the wind. For that reason, we have no fronting hazards, such as bunkers or severe contours because we want you to have the possibility of landing a ball short of the green and rolling it onto the green. That’s important certainly into the wind, when you’re trying to get the shot lower, but even more important when you’re playing directly down a strong wind because you have to land the ball short; if you were to land on the green it would go over.
We give these type of initial concepts to our associates in the field. We give it to the guys, “Start working on this, and feel absolutely free to deviate from this at any point you see something happening that you think could be better.”
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Deviate from the design if you see something better.
Bill: The key to being a good golf course architect: first of all, having a love for the game and appreciation for the game of golf, and what it’s provided to so many countless millions of people through its 500-year history. Beyond that, it’s having a knowledge of how different people play and what provides them interest and enjoyment in the process.
You want the owner, without question, to be happy. You want the people who are going to come there to be happy. But you can’t control those things. If you can, as a designer, do something that you truly believe is the best that can be done on that given site, at that given time, then I think that’s all you can do.
On screen text:
Ask questions. Be engaged.
Sand Valley: “Golf Digest’s best new course of 2017”
—Golf Digest
Bandon Trails: “Top 15 on America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses”
—Golf Digest
Cabot Cliffs: “Top 20 on World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses”
—Golf Digest
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Own your tomorrow®
Bill: I’d like to say I’ve picked it, but I think it picked us. Pretty special.
Onscreen text:
[Charles Schwab logo] [PGA Tour logo]
The Official Investment Firm
Thanks to
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Sand Valley Golf Resort
Cabot Links
Music fades.
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