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Ran Morrissett got his first taste of golf as a young boy growing up in Richmond, Va. That’s when he began joining his investment-banker father, Ed, and two younger brothers, Bill and John, for post-dinner games on the James River Course at the Country Club of Virginia. His mother, Betty, often accompanied the group, even though she was not a player. So did their dog, Sandy, who had been rescued from the local pound.
In time, the sport came to permeate Morrissett’s soul. It first started to spread when his mom gave his dad a copy of The World Atlas of Golf. Ran, whose given name is Randolph Edward Morrissett III, couldn’t put the book down. His brothers were just as enthralled and they started sketching golf holes that were featured in the volume as they also created their own.
The game took an even greater hold after Morrissett took a couple of golf trips with his family, first to Pinehurst, N.C., and Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island, S.C., in 1981, and then two years later to Scotland, where the itinerary included Dornoch, Turnberry, Muirfield and St. Andrews. The post-round discussions on the architecture of those courses were as compelling as the rounds they played. Morrissett discovered what would become a lifelong interest in traveling the globe with his clubs.
That led him to establish Golf Club Atlas in 1999. Devoid of advertising or subscription fees, it has become the preeminent site for course architecture, as well as one of the most interesting, educational and entertaining places to go in all of sports.
Want to read Tom Doak’s latest ruminations on reversible courses? And engage architects like Bill Coore, Bobby Weed and Steve Smyers on, say, the intricacies of a Redan design and the risk-reward features of the Old Course at St. Andrews? You can do those things and much more at GolfClubAtlas.com by joining its Discussion Group, which is limited to 1,750 participants. You have to register to participate and the site is policed by Morrissett, so topics stay focused on course architecture and discourse remains civil.
The site is also where you can peruse more than 180 course profiles that detail places as fascinating as they are far flung, such as the Old at Ballybunion in County Kerry; the recently renovated Sleepy Hollow on the Hudson River in New York; and the spectacular yet underappreciated links at Humewood in South Africa. Morrissett describes these layouts as “inspiring to play,” and says they help “trace the history and evolution of golf course architecture” – and allow golfers to “understand why some courses are more fascinating than others, and why such courses continually beckon for a return game.”
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