59 since, he’s done it again and again. Mike has made the creation of the ‘build it and they will come’ golf model look so easy that people have done it all over the world. They have made being successful look so easy that other people think they can do it too! The influence that he has had on golf architecture is extraordinary. He wants golf to be fun, exciting and inspirational. And that is amazing. “Mike resurrected the idea that par three courses, and other alternative formats, are both acceptable and desirable. I remember when he called me and said, ‘Bill, I want to build a par-three course at Bandon. Everyone comes out here thinking they’re going to play 36 holes a day, but I want to have a shorter form of golf for them to enjoy’. In the 1980s, Ben and I tried so hard to persuade some developers to build par-three or nine-hole courses, but the view was always, ‘Nobody wants that; it’s not proper golf’. Then Mike Keiser comes along and builds a par-three course, and now everybody wants them.” Coore will be 80 at his next birthday, but he shows few signs of slowing down. The current boom in golf development no doubt has something to do with that, but he continues to fly from project to project, reviewing and editing the work done by his team of hot-shot – and loyal – associates. He realises that the boom must eventually come to an end. “Every business is cyclical, and I don’t think it can continue at the rate it is, but there will continue to be very interesting projects coming forward,” he says. “The site-driven, remote projects will probably slow significantly, because they appeal to a more narrow segment of the golfing community so are economically more demanding than local courses. As time and years go by, it will become clear that the success that the Keiser family has had didn’t come as easily as they make it appear. I think there will a steady stream of refurbishing existing courses to keep them alive and prospering. “I get a bit concerned when I see a lot of older, highly acclaimed courses being changed dramatically to try to meet some kind of ‘modern standard’ for either competitive play or to keep up with other clubs. I believe that golf architecture needs to be represented, just like any sort of creative endeavour, by different forms from different eras – I look at some old courses and think, ‘These are museum pieces. They should be allowed to stay as they are’.” BILL COORE Photo: Jacob Sjöman One of Coore & Crenshaw’s most recent designs, the Point Hardy course at Cabot St Lucia resort, is already being included on many world ranking lists
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