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Painting outside the fairway lines with Mike Strantz at Tobacco Road
Quotes by Mike Strantz
Photos by Ryan Barnett
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Editor’s note: During the reporting of TGJ No. 10’s, “The One Less Travelled,” author Jay Revell uncovered rare footage of late architect Mike Strantz during construction of his Tobacco Road in 1998. The following quotes and opinions can be heard in those interviews. For extended analysis of the forgotten footage, check out TGJ Podcast 42: The Lost Strantz Tapes.
“I tend to look at golf-course design and construction very artistically, which is compatible with being a zen thing. Art, and many of the fine arts, to me, is very much a spiritual thing. It’s a thing of beauty; it touches a part of the human soul that I don’t think many other things do. And that’s the way I tend to look at golf-course architecture: It’s functional artwork to me.”
“When deciding where the first hole goes, you generally start with the clubhouse area…you start to look geometrically at the site and how—without contour—you can start to fit holes in. The contour will stick out on the topography and you’ll just see a few natural golf holes. You’ll just see two or three natural golf holes and we’ll just stick ’em in there without giving them any numbers yet and say, ‘I’m gonna try and use these,’ and see if you can’t somehow make it work in the grand scheme of things.”
I got started in the golf business in a roundabout way: When I was old enough to start working at 15 or 16 years old, I worked at a golf course pushing the mower, cutting underneath trees, anything you can think of.
Fortunately, I had enough insight to recognize I did not have the self discipline to make it as an artist at age 22. So I just changed course completely, withdrew and enrolled into Michigan State’s turf management program and was going to become a golf-course superintendent.
I was doing an internship at a place called the Inverness Club that was getting ready for the U.S. Open in 1979 and Tom Fazio was under contract with the USGA to do any kind of modification to the tournament sites. I just kind of fell in with him. There was a gentleman by the name of Andy Banfield who was kind of Tommy’s right-hand man on the job. I guess he saw that I had some kind of talent and told Tom about it. One thing led to another and the day after the U.S. Open I was on a plane to Hilton Head working for Tommy.
When I first came to this site, I was kind of forewarned that it was an abandoned sand pit that had basically been used for mine material from [an] asphalt plant, so I thought it had good possibilities before I started. But when I got here and started to see these little sections of real rugged sand areas and little pine trees that are 3 feet off the ground and 15 years old—just a real rustic, gnarly looking atmosphere— I knew it could not only be something spectacular, but unique.
We’re probably headed to a day where, instead of guys having to run the dozer they can just control it on a little pad like kids playing with them. Who knows where we’re headed; whether we’ll be cutting grass with lasers or whatever.
Back before the advent of the high-tech earth moving equipment you had to spend a lot of time looking at contours and a lot of the golf hotels were routed through valleys because they didn’t have the capability of moving that kind of dirt.
We look for two things here at Tobacco Road: contrast between tall fescue and the bent grass, and also the barrier between the bermuda grass and the native sand areas.
When I walk the grounds on any site it’s picking out whatever characteristics or whatever peculiarities in regards to vegetation contour and the overall feel of the entire piece of ground. Here at Sanford, it would be the sand areas, scrubby pine areas—the native grasses that are growing out here.
Here we had a limited amount of property even though we took up a significant amount of acreage; we were cut out pretty bad with wetlands.
Hard to find, harder to leave.
Back home at the modest, cabin-style clubhouse.
“I’m not sure this job can be taught. I would compare this to regular artwork. You can teach a person technically how to do things. You can teach a person technically how to play the piano but I don’t think you can teach someone to be Marcus Roberts or Herbie Hancock. You can’t teach someone to play like that. They either have it or they don’t. You can teach someone to be a golf course architect—to a certain point—but unless they possess the feel and intangibles that go with creating these grand products, I’m not sure you can teach that to somebody. They either have it or they don’t.”
“I made up my mind: I’m not going to do another interview until the guys who work with me get the credit for what they do. You wouldn’t be talking to me without those guys. Forrest Fezler, he’s my right-hand man and without him I wouldn’t be able to get it done. Then there’s my four shapers that’ve done every job with me so far: Mike Jones, his brother Jeff Jones, Luke Kinder and Mark White. Those guys take the drawings that I do and make them come alive. I want people to know it’s more of a team effort. Even Juan and his laborers, none of this stuff would be here without them.”
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