The original World Atlas of Golf was published in 1973, and its essays on the great courses [written by Charles Price, Herbert Warren Wind, Pat Ward-Thomas, and Peter Thomson] were a fundamental part of my early education about golf architecture, as a teenager in the 1970’s. I often tell people I “memorized the book,” and it is not far from true! For this total revision of the original, I was asked to write the Introduction, mimicking Donald Steel’s original introduction that traced the history of golf course design and explains some of the technical details that influence designs today. It was also quite an honor to have three of my own courses profiled in the new book.
