Tom Doak is a man that looks at all spectrums of golf course design. He feels that every great golf course architect needs to find time to study the great links of Scotland and the British Isles. Tom attended Cornell University where he caddied every summer at St. Andrews and studied the course and others around him. See St Andrews, New South Wales for St Andrews, Sydney, Australia. ...

“Twenty years ago, if you wanted to build a great golf course, you hired a big-name architect and gave him a big budget to work with.

Today's market is more sophisticated. The most noteworthy courses of the past decade have been among the least expensive to build. Thanks to clients who understand the value of beautiful property, we're able to create courses which compare with the best of the past ... and look like they have been here just as long.

Great design is a matter of detail. We pride ourselves on taking the time to get things right.” - Tom Doak, principal designer

While Tom was in design school at Cornell, he was studying Landscape Architecture. Doak took his knowledge and applied it to the golf course. He found in his studies that most of the designers thought the land around and within the golf course was a negative look at how a golf course should look like. Most viewed the golf hole as all rough and the fairway being the place where the golfer should go. Doak viewed the golf hole as being all fairways and inserting bunkers and rough only to make the hole more interesting. Golf is a game where individual players or teams hit a ball into a hole using various clubs, and is one of the few ball games that does not use a fixed standard playing area. ...

Tom’s ideas on design have been shaped by traveling and seeing nearly every great course in the world. Tom’s strategy for unique design has been involving little aspects from different courses and golf holes and bringing them into one that makes Tom’s design his own.

Doak credits most of his accomplishments and success to Pete Dye. Doak worked with Dye to learn how to construct golf courses during graduate school. Doak was exposed to different views, including the famous golf course architect Robert Trent Jones. Dye gave Tom one bit of advise that has stuck with Tom every since. Dye taught him how to run a bulldozer and Doak was then able to think in three dimensions and how to use the materials around him. Robert Trent Jones, Sr. ...

“Today it is politically correct for every designer to talk about “working with the land.” However, in their next breath, most other designers go on to dismiss minimalism as impractical, except on the most special sites. They lament that the good pieces of land are all gone, and complain about modern environmental restrictions.” – Tom Doak

There are also many books that Doak has wrtitten about Golf Course Design. The books include:

• The Anatomy of a Golf Course [1]
• The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses
• The Making of Pacific Dunes
• The Life and Work of Dr. Alister MacKenzie [2]

Public & resort courses

• Apache Stronghold Golf Club - Globe, AZ [3]
• Barnbougle Dunes Golf Links - Bridport, Tasmania, Australia [4]
• Beechtree Golf Club - Aberdeen, MD [5]
• Black Forest at Wilderness Valley - Gaylord, MI [6]
• Cape Kidnappers Resort - Napier New Zealand [7]
• Charlotte Golf Links - Charlotte, NC [8]
• High Pointe Golf Club - Williamsburg, MI [9]
• Pacific Dunes Golf Club - Bandon, OR [10]
• Quail Crossing Golf Club - Evansville, IN [11]]
• Riverfront Golf Club - Suffolk, VA [12]
• The Legends Golf Club - Heathlands Course - Myrtle Beach, SC [13]
• The Rawls Course at Texas Tech University - Lubbock, TX [14]
• Butt Boy Links - Golfclubatlas, IL

Private courses

• Atlantic City Country Club - Northfield, NJ
• Ballyneal, Holyoke, CO [15]
• Lost Dunes Golf Club - Bridgman, MI
• The Golf Club at St. Andrew’s Beach - Rye, Victoria, Australia
• Sebonack Golf Club - Southampton, NY
• Stone Eagle Golf Club - Palm Desert, CA
• Stonewall Golf Club - Old Course - Elverson, PA
• Stonewall Golf Club - North Course - Elverson, PA
• The Village Club - Sands Point, NY
• Tumble Creek at Suncadia - Cle Elum, WA [16]