Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective: 4 - Tapa dura

The fourth volume of Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective incorporates forty-two absorbing and lavishly illustrated golf-architecture-based essays, along with six picture essays--a true smorgasbord of information for students of golf-course architecture and golf book collectors, who, collectively, yearn for stimulating literature that extends beyond the short-lived thrill of the latest tip on swing technique.

Paul Daley has gathered a contemporary, international assessment of the golf-course-architecture industry, through which its principles and practices are examined.

To complement the technical, engineering and problem-solving-based essays, which transport readers squarely 'into the cockpit' of the design world, readers encounter a balance of teasing, esoteric accounts; for example, one author's explanation of his addiction to sand. Another essayist makes the link between Tobacco Road Golf Club and Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, while yet another has written cleverly on a course-bunkering style at a famous British course that resembles the shape of human eyebrows!

The demand for course reviews remains high and, with an array of new and relatively new courses featured-the Australian courses of Magenta Shores and Settlers Run, The Ridge at Manitou in Canada, Haugaland Golf Klubb in Norway, The Castle Course, St Andrews, and the Fairmont at St Andrews in Scotland, Black Mountain in Thailand, and the US courses at Bayonne, Erin Hills, Primland, Sebonack and Wolf Point Club-there is much to enjoy through the cool thoughts and heated passion expressed in Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective.

Paul Daley's love of the game from childhood has since become his career as a speaker, writer and publisher on various aspects of golf, including its history and architecture.

Previous titles, Links Golf: The Inside Story (2000) and The Sandbelt: Melbourne's Golfing Heaven (2001) a collaboration with renowned Australian golf-course photographer, David Scaletti were joint runners-up in the United States Golf Association International Golf Book of the Year Award in 2000 and 2001. The success of Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective (2002), plus Paul's attraction to the multi-faceted golf-course architecture industry, led him to publish three additional volumes on golf-architecture-related essays. In between these volumes, Paul's company, Full Swing Golf Publishing, produced Favourite Holes by Design: The Architect's Choice (2004), a publication that details the individual favourite holes of many of the world's leading golf architects.

With membership of The National Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia, the Tillinghast Association, and the Golf Society of Australia, Paul is an ex-pennant golfer playing from a handicap of seven, and enthusiastically follows several mainstream sports, especially cricket.

His favourite golf course is Alister Mackenzie's West Course at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club because it is fun, challenging and brilliantly designed.