Tom Doak - November 15, 2011

• By Morning Drive Team
• Nov 15, 2011 7:55 AM ET

Tom Doak is a renowned golf course architect who is the consulting architect for the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. He feels that people need to tune into the Presidents Cup early because in his opinion the best holes on the golf course are among the earliest holes on the course. 6 holes are from the East and 12 holes are from the West Course and the design style is very similar on both courses because the same people were involved on both of them which makes the Composite Course seamless.

When it comes to preserving classic courses by people like Alister MacKenzie, you have to leave your ego at the door because the design is not about your vision. Instead, it is about maximizing the vision of the original artist and the closer to the vision, the better the course ultimately is. Because some of the bunkers at Royal Melbourne are so big, the course is similar to Augusta National in that you have to play the course from green to tee instead of tee to green. The course will be reseeded with a new strain of grass after the Presidents Cup and he is interested to see how it turns out because Royal Melbourne is concerned about having the course play way too short at certain times of the year.