Mike Strantz

Michael J. Strantz was born in Toledo, Ohio, on 27 May 1955 and grew up in Walbridge. Drawing and golf became early twin passions. After completing a turfgrass-management degree at Michigan State University in 1978, he worked on the grounds crew at Inverness Club while Tom Fazio prepared the course for the 1979 U.S. Open. Fazio recognised his ability to visualise and shape land and invited him onto the construction team. For almost eight years Strantz worked directly on Fazio sites including Wild Dunes, Lake Nona, Wade Hampton, Kiawah and Black Diamond. He became a leading shaper able to translate drawings into three-dimensional form. He then left the firm, spent a period as a commercial artist and established an independent practice in the late 1980s. Caledonia Golf & Fish Club was his first major original course. True Blue, Royal New Kent, Stonehouse, Tobacco Road, Tot Hill Farm and Bulls Bay followed. Strantz produced very few courses, but each possesses immediate identity. His sketches, frequently complete works of art, explored movement, light and the player’s viewpoint before technical detail. The architecture operates at enormous scale: vast sand areas, sculptural mounds, audacious greens and perspectives that can make a wide fairway appear almost inaccessible. Tobacco Road is the best-known example. A tee shot may look nearly impossible even though a generous receiving area exists beyond the visible forms. This tension between intimidation and generosity is central to Strantz. He sought not difficulty alone but emotional reaction and a sequence of memorable decisions. With Forrest Fezler he also undertook renovations, most notably Monterey Peninsula’s Shore Course. Diagnosed with cancer during the early 2000s, he continued drawing and working until his death on 10 June 2005 in the Charleston area. He was only fifty. His influence is far larger than the small portfolio. Strantz demonstrated that a golf course could become functional, radical art while retaining width, strategy and several routes of play.