Doug Wright

Thanks to the Maine Golf Course Superintendents Association for inviting me to speak last week at the Maine Turf Conference. It was a pleasure to speak to a great group of hardworking golf professionals as well as catch up with numerous old friends from the business.

@ECCSuper77 Congratulations, Jeff! Well deserved!

It’s with great honor to announce that I have become the new GM/Director of Agronomy at ECC! I appreciate everyone who has taken my calls over the last month who have already made this transition. You know who you are. My skills as a super have trained me for this! Onward.

A beautiful morning at Meadowbrook Golf Course in Fort Worth, everything is growing in nicely. #fortworthgolf #texasgolf #munigolf

Darmor Club—co-designed by our own Doug Wright & Hal Sutton—has been named Best New Course in Texas for 2025 and #5 Overall by The Dallas Morning News! The highest debut in 20+ years! 👏⛳ #HeritageLinks #DarmorClub #GolfCourseExcellence #TopGolfCourses

@StretchZee @coltondaniel @Top100Rick Respectfully, you’re missing the best one :)

@coltondaniel @Top100Rick AGC Trinity Forest Brook Hollow Childress Hall (will be great and 2 courses eventually) Wolf Point/TX0 (granted estate course, almost no access) Colonial Bluejack National Dallas National…. That’s 8…. I’d have Memorial Park above it. So 10-ish for me.

Good morning from the only top 100 course in Texas. 🥶 (According to Golf Mag)

@texasgolflore I have the exact Sun Mountain bag in the pic, except with single strap. Absolutely love it. All the modern features you want with classic retro look. Leather accents are nice. Lightweight and comfortable to carry.

what bag is everyone using right now? i am in the market for a new bag and it has been some years since i got new one. i have always like the ping hoofer.

@Top100Rick @GregMarthaler2 I really hope Greg is trolling us because that is an all time wild take. I was going to grill a nice steak for dinner tonight but maybe I’ll just fast until the hurricane passes

@GregMarthaler2 Greg do you spend every day of your life being super sad about all the horrible things going on? Do you never golf because that would be disrespectful to starving kids in the Congo? I feel awful about the hurricane. I have friends there. My golf tweets are irrelevant.

The comfort stations at the legendary Gozzer Ranch Golf Club! You drive by the 2 comfort stations 3 times during your round. Skip breakfast and be ready to chow down! What can you eat and drink during your round? Let’s take a deep dive:

@Top100Rick Got to play it last year and can attest it deserves every accolade it gets, including the #1 ranking in the world. Holes 11-13 are the best three-hole stretch of par 4’s in the world, in my opinion. Everything about the course is so so good.

Pine Valley - #1/World Top 100 1918 - George Crump As a natural contrarian, I drove into Pine Valley skeptical. I wondered if a golf course could truly be a clear cut #1 in the world. I left a believer. Pine Valley is simply the best collection of golf holes on the planet. George Crump rode by the land on the train and realized it could become something special. He enlisted Colt, Tillinghast, CB MacDonald, Walter Travis, and George Thomas to provide advice. Using their help and his own will, he built a shrine. The course is so vast. With 500+ acres of land, every hole feels like its own world. The walk is perfect, you often cut through nature during your walk of dreams, providing a wonderful moment of respite from thinking about your next shot. It’s hard. Really hard. With a 153 slope from the member tees, it is unforgiving. But birdies can be made and if the fairway is found, good rounds are out there. A 10 handicap may shoot 100, but you never feel like shooting your handicap is impossible. (If only we got 10 chances!) You need every club. You can’t let your mind rest for a moment or double bogey is eminent. The hole by hole uniqueness is off the charts, every hole seems like a new story and challenge. The par 3’s are quite possibly the best on earth. Playing 130, 150, 175 downhill, 210 uphill, your irons are tested completely. While it’s very private, guests feel welcome. The staff is phenomenal. The caddies are pros. The agronomy team keeps the course in a state of perfection. The members love to share the course with friends and golf appreciators. Truly one of the best golf experiences a human can have. I could happily write a book about PV, but others, far more capable, have done that already. So I’ll leave it with this: Pine Valley is simply the very best.

@Top100Rick Links, Mountain, Parkland, Desert is the correct answer

Rank these styles of golf course by preference: - Parkland - Desert - Mountain - Links Myself, I go 3,4,2,1. Though there are courses in each category that are amazing. And we have a several lack of links style golf in the USA.

@Top100Rick Am I the only one that would be excited to play in this? Granted, by the 18th hole I might think differently. But the prospect of teeing off into a gale across the pond seems exhilarating from my current seat in Texas.

If you travel somewhere to golf and refuse to tee off in this, you aren’t even a golfer. Just go play indoor golf.

Someday soon there will be a new golf course here in Austin… ⁦@heritage_links⁩ ⁦@DougWrightGolf⁩ Travis Club

@Top100Rick I played it from about 205 into the wind. Hit a striped 5 iron just short. Don’t carry a 4 iron in my bag and could not convince myself to hit an 18 degree 5 wood on a 205 yard par 3

The 8th hole at Aronimink. 😍 What club you taking? 190 yards Downhill Wind 5 mph into Green firm 180 to clear right bunker Just ate a Snickers I hit a perfect towering draw 6 iron to 20 feet. Then 3 putted. 😂😢

@SHistorians Gone but not forgotten. RIP Snob

I must admit the fall out from Country Club Snob’s ouster has been fascinating.

@islandsoup Be safe!

Ernesto is on his way 🌀 stay safe Bermuda!

@TurfgrassZealot @jerry_flaherty @TerraRadTech Jerry is the best!

Gerald Flaherty and I had a great conversation. In this clip, we focused on mapping large areas and making sensible adjustments to the data. The full episode will drop soon! @jerry_flaherty @turfrad @TerraRadTech

Had a great couple days of education and fun in Minnesota. Thanks to The TORO Company for showing us around the headquarters and a few days of golf.

@TurfgrassZealot @Top100Rick Back at you! I love a healthy debate. I think the term links is one of the most hijacked words in golf so I’ve taken a hardline approach haha! Nothing irks me more when marketing, PR, etc folk describe a course as being a links just because it’s got some nice wavy native grass!

@DougWrightGolf @Top100Rick You are a good dude, Doug! This is how to have a good discussion!!!! Bravo!

In honor of the Open Championship, we sought out the truest links course in North America. I think we found it.

@TurfgrassZealot @Top100Rick By the way, the correct answer is Pac Dunes or Old Mac 🙂

@DougWrightGolf @Top100Rick I admire your tenacity. But at the end of the day, you are right. There is no right answer!

@TurfgrassZealot @Top100Rick I am aware of the old English word. I love using the word “linking” when describing this subject because it makes perfect sense semantically. Old English definition aside, the linksland “links” the ocean to the arable inland soil…

@DougWrightGolf @Top100Rick Incorrect use of linking. See my response.

@TurfgrassZealot @Top100Rick I lived in Scotland and also researched this intently while studying Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh. There is no right answer, however there are many historians and authorities on the subject that would agree a links course needs to be located near an ocean.

When we were building Kingsbarns, we studied this intently. I even worked with Robert Price, who wrote a book on the geomorphology of Linksland. Price agreed that the standard definition of the coastal concept of the land that rises from the sea is correct and more commonly used. However, this doesn't rule out the historical estuarial development of ancient sandy soils. So, indeed, an inland estuary can also have a rising landform. The term "links" is from the Scottish word hlinc, which means "rising ground" or "ridge." The term refers to the landform on which many links courses are built on sandy soil that drains well, with few trees and natural hazards such as dunes, tall grasses and pot bunkers. These rising grounds were often unsuitable for crop production, too steep for grazing, and created blowing sand conditions in the wind. Animals would dig in and hide from these conditions. Thus, bunkers were created. This means nothing to me without the firm, dry, fast sand-based site that tends to favor the growth of poverty grasses. However, after studying this from many angles, I see no reason why an inland golf situation can't be called links golf if the above criteria are met.