Joe Jemsek was the featured guest on the 80th episode of the popular Feed The Ball podcast with associate editor for architecture at Golf Digest, Derek Duncan. They discuss the restoration project at Lake Wales Country Club, the lost Seth Raynor design outside Orlando. Additionally they dive deep into the work of Dick Wilson, Joe Lee, their unique design philosophies, and dispel the notions of the "dark ages of golf design" .
From FeedTheBall.com - Joe Jemsek grew up with Dick Wilson. At least figuratively. In the early 1960s, Wilson, one of golf architecture’s most interesting and possibly misunderstood figures, designed the former America’s 100 Greatest Course Cog Hill No. 4 in Chicago, known as Dubsdread, for Jemsek’s grandfather. Few people knew Wilson or his former partner Joe Lee as well as the Jemseks, and the family remained close with Lee until his death in 2003. The younger Jemsek’s experience growing up on Dubsdread inspired him to dig deeper into the work of Wilson. Now an architect in his own right (the Jemsek family stills operates Cog Hill, along with several other facilities), Jemsek has poured through the Wilson/Lee archives and studied Wilson’s courses as closely as anyone in the profession.
Jemsek joins the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss how Wilson’s legacy has aged, the orchestrated prescription of shots he built into his designs, how Wilson’s courses helped revolutionize resort golf, the special shaping crew known as the All-Stars he used on his courses, the appeal of the “championship course” to golfers of the 1960s (and beyond), the role Lee played in the Wilson operation and how his approach to design differed, and the past, present and potential future of Dubsdread.
Listen to the podcast here
Villa Real Golf Club - Havana, Cuba Circa 1959
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