U.S. Women's Open: Doak Stalks Creamer!
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Fun anecdote from Randall Mell from Tuesday at Sebonack on the eve of the U.S. Women's Open at the Tom Doak-Jack Nicklaus designed course:
When Doak first inquired whether he could follow Creamer around, Creamer didn’t believe it.
“I asked my dad,`Is it a joke? Is someone playing a trick on me?'” Creamer said.
Creamer, who won the U.S. Women’s Open in 2010 on Oakmont’s treacherous greens, relished the chance to grill Doak on nuances of his designs.
“Why would you do this to us?” Creamer playfully asked Doak of the toughest greens. “I didn’t give him too much grief about it, but he laughed.”
Dave Shedloski talks to architects Nicklaus and Doak about the unusual design collaboration.
Nicklaus said the routing of the course is predominantly the work of Doak, but the tee-to-green strategy shows more of his influence. He figures he moved perhaps as many as half of the bunkers into more strategic locations. Doak designed the greens. Nicklaus liked them, but softened them.
“The look is more Tom’s, and the golf is a combination of both of us,” Nicklaus said. “My idea was to have good, playable golf. Tom will throw bunkers in different places for the aesthetics, so that’s the look. I think the combination turned out well. I learned a lot from this golf course; it’s given me another dimension on how to do golf courses.
