Tom Doak has traveled the world, not only designing golf courses but studying the designs of others. In 1988, at 27, he self-published what became a cult classic, The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, containing highly opinionated thumbnail sketches of courses he found, good and bad. Now twice that age, Doak has updated his Confidential Guide and is releasing a five-volume set over five years. This time he has enlisted three other critics, Ran Morrissett of the United States, Darius Oliver of Australia and Masa Nishijima of Japan, to supplement his travels, but the voice throughout the books is Doak’s.
His goal is to serve as a travel guide to golfers interested in course architecture. Vol. 1, Great Britain and Ireland, released in 2014, did a superb job of highlighting…