As an author, I have the good fortune to venture vicariously through the lives of my varied subjects and shadow my compelling collaborators.I get to see the world through their eyes, endure their failures, and experience their triumphs through their words and memories.
Chronicling the recollections of golf’s greatest architects to write this book has taken me on a virtual journey through the mountains and valleys; beaches, lakes, and streams; pine forests and pine barrens; meadows and plains; and landscapes and landfills that would become beloved and beguiling golf courses in lands far and near.
The architects have dressed me in Wellington boots, put me on ‘dozers, allowed me to peek at their drawing tables, let me sit in on client meetings in their boardrooms, and, most blessedly of all, put a golf club in my hands – indeed, put golf clubs in all of our hands!
You can come along too in these pages … architect after architect … course after course … secret after secret
– Michael Patrick Shiels