Born

• 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska

Degrees

• Bachelor of Fine Arts - Painting, The University of Montana, 2009

• Master of Landscape Architecture, The University of Georgia, 2013

Dundee Golf Projects

• Shorehaven GC - Renovation (2024)

• Old Barnwell Kids Course (2024) [w/ Brian Schneider]

• Old Barnwell (2022-23) [w/ Brian Schneider]

• Watchung Valley GC (2022) - Short Course and partial renovation

• Tin House Club (2021) [w/ Kye Goalby and Brian Schneider]

Experience with Renaissance Golf Design

• Childress Hall GC (2024)

• High Pointe GC (2023)

• Pinehurst no. 10 (2023)

• Skokie CC (2022)

• Montclair GC (2021)

• Salem Country Club (2021)

• Dornick Hills Country Club (2021)

• St. Patricks, Ireland (2019-2020)

• Llanerch Country Club (2019-2020)

• Memorial Park, Houston (2019)

• The National (Ocean Course), Australia (2018)

• Washington Golf & Country Club (2018)

• Bel-Air Country Club (2017-2018)

• Round Hill Club (2016)

• Milwaukee Country Club (2015)

• Stoatin Brae (2015)

• Hollywood Golf Club (2013-2014)

• Medinah Country Club (Course One) (2013)

• Dismal River (Red) (2012)

Other Shaping Experience

• Lakewood Country Club (2020)

• Denver Country Club (2020)

• Oakland Hills (2020)

• El Niguel Country Club (2018)

• Twin Dolphin Resort (2017)

• Pinehurst no. 3 and no. 5 remodel (2017)

• Winter Park Nine (2016)

• Virginia Country Club (2015)

• Quail Lodge Resort (2014-2015)

• Brentwood Country Club (2014)

2012 was my first foray into the golf business. Tom Doak offered me a summer internship helping build his course at Dismal River in the Nebraska Sandhills. Those three months helped me understand what goes into building a great course, but also confirmed something I didn't know: design doesn’t happen on paper, it happens in the dirt.

Shaping the land isn’t much different than painting or sculpting or drawing, you’re just using different tools on a bigger scale. This parallel appealed to my artistic sensibilities. From then on I knew I wanted to spend my time on site, collaborating with others, and building cool golf courses. Now, since forming Dundee Golf in 2013, I feel grateful for the opportunity to travel the world doing what I love. 

Tom and his associates are labeled as minimalists and that’s how I learned to design and build golf courses. I think place-based design is a better term, but the design philosophies are the same: finding ways to integrate and harmonize the natural environment with the built environment. The key to building something of the place is finding site-specific solutions. This is not a new idea, but rather a resurrection of old philosophies and methods, for this is how the original links were built and how Golden Age courses in the 1920s were built.

That being said, I’ve also learned to embrace intentionality. Place-based design gives you freedom to explore a site’s history and previous uses and integrate them for a new purpose: golf. There is no better example of integrating an existing feature than at North Berwick and the “Pit” hole. The low stone wall — originally a boundary for farmland — was adapted into the golf course and now runs across the fairway and guards the green. They could’ve removed the wall and made a fine golf hole in the same footprint, but if they had we likely wouldn’t be talking about it today. Instead they chose to think how the wall could be used strategically and ended up with one of the most unique and iconic holes in the world.

That’s why creative problem solving is at the heart of good golf design. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes from finding clever solutions for tricky problems. The good thing is that itch can be scratched in every phase of design and construction, from site layout, to routing, to greens construction and bunker strategy, down to the final details of finish work before seed goes down. That’s half of why I’ve really fallen in love with building golf courses.

The other half is getting to work together and have fun with a bunch of talented people. That part is crucial to good golf design. Not one person has all the answers, so gather as many bright people as you can and look at the design from as many angles as possible. If you do that you’ll get a lot right. Building great golf boils down to a group of dedicated, creative, problem solvers who love the game and enjoy collaboration. Those are the kind of projects where you can feel how much fun it must’ve been to build while you’re playing. That’s the type of work I want to be known for and want to continue building.

Blake Conant