- photo courtesy Renaissance Design

First he will have to create a course steeped in the impressive legacy of one of the games iconic architects. And he will do so in the shadow of his own seven-year-old Pacific Dunes layout, recognized by experts as one of the finest new designs of this era.

The new course, Old Macdonald, will be an 18-hole homage to the legendary early19th century architect Charles Blair Macdonald, the first U.S. Amateur champion and widely considered the father of golf in America.

Doak and his design associate, Jim Urbina will head up a team of experts who will collaborate with the architects in creating a course that reflects the Scottish-influenced look, style, and strategy Macdonald employed in his designs. The new project will take shape on 400 acres north and east of the Pacific Dunes course. It is scheduled to open July 2010.

Pacific Dunes holds down the No. 2 slot on Golfweek's Top 100 best American modern courses. It is also one of two new courses among a brace of world-famous old classics that make up the top 10 in GOLF Magazine's latest Top 100 U.S. courses. Macdonald's most acclaimed course, the 1908 National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York, is listed one notch below Pacific Dunes on that magazine's ranking of best courses in the country. National also just happens to be the favorite course of Bandon owner, Mike Keiser who commissioned the project.

Doak's daunting task is further accentuated by the resorts other two courses. Bandon Dunes designed by David McLay Kidd, and Bandon Trails, created by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are also included among Golf magazine's 2007 ranking of the Top 100 U.S. courses.

"I think I'm not employing Doak and Urbina as architects. I'm employing them to design as C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, his apprentice and successor, would build it if they were alive today," Keiser said in an earlier announcement of the project.

Doak and Urbina have already been consulting and exchanging ideas with the panel of golf architecture aficionados which includes George Bahto, author of a book about Macdonald's life.

Keiser's selection of Doak for this unique project is a natural fit. Like Macdonald, Doak is a disciple of the essence of Scottish golf from working and studying at St. Andrews. He also has first-hand experience designing a new course that will forever be measured against another famous track that just happens to be next door.

Among current projects his Traverse City-based Renaissance Golf Design team is undertaking is a course in Gullane, Scotland, coincidentally named the Renaissance Golf Club at Archerfield. The neighbor to the east is Muirfield, the renowned golf Mecca and British Open venue regarded as the oldest course in the world.

In yet another similarity with Macdonald, Doak has also left his imprint on Southampton, New York where he recently collaborated with Jack Nicklaus on the new Sebonack Golf Club which is earning rave reviews.

Doak's three home-state Michigan designs are the High Pointe Golf Club at Williamsburg, Black Forest at the Wilderness Valley Golf Club in Gaylord, and the private Lost Dunes Golf Club in Bridgman, recently named to Golf Digest magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Courses in America.

For more information on Tom Doak-Renaissance Golf Design visit www.renaissancegolf.com.

For information on the Two Man Links Championship, held annually at the Bandon Dunes Resort (this year's playing is April 5-9, 2008) please click the link above or visit http://www.bandondunes2manlinks.com