In 1982, as a 21-year-old undergraduate at Cornell University, Tom Doak won a scholarship that he put toward travel and research overseas.
Cornell’s Dreer Award was earmarked for students of landscape architecture, a major Doak had chosen because it was the closest the school offered to the field in which he hoped to work. He dreamed of becoming a golf-course architect.
With $10,000 in support, Doak spent nine months visiting 170 courses across the United Kingdom and Ireland, developing an eye and understanding of design that have since propelled him to industry renown. (In 1987, another aspiring course architect, Doak’s future peer Gil Hanse, won the Dreer Award, too.)
Beyond helping pay the bills, the award “legitimized my travels,” Doak told Golf.com by email, “and provided me an open door pretty much everywhere I went.”
The education was invaluable. At the urging of his mentor, Pete Dye, Doak went deep during his course visits, pacing off distances and committing details of famous holes to memory that would come in handy in more ways than one. (As Dye framed it to Doak, if a future client suggested that a green he’d built was too small, he “could respond that it’s only 14 paces between the bunker and the far edge of the green on the Road Hole, and that should keep them quiet!”)
Doak hasn’t forgotten those numbers. Nor has he forgotten what the award meant to him. Now, he is helping offer a version of it to the next generation.
The Doak Award, launched with funding from Doak and Childress Hall, a private club in Texas that is home to a Doak-designed World Top 100 course (Childress also has a more recently opened course by Hanse), aims to give promising young golf-course architects the chance to pursue the kind of self-directed education that helped shape Doak’s own career.
The idea is to give emerging designers an opportunity to fill gaps in their experience and education through travel and practical study — a hands-on curriculum that they map out for themselves. The award is intended primarily for applicants under 30, though older candidates are welcome to apply with the understanding that they will be at a disadvantage in the selection process.
The award will be given in even-numbered years, starting in 2026, with $50,000 expected to be available for each cycle. Applicants will be asked to propose their own programs of travel and practical education, explaining what they hope to learn and how the experience would advance their development as golf-course architects.
Though golf and travel are far more expensive today than they were in the 1980s, Doak said that the award’s dollars will stretch farther with help from his past clients, who will be able to set up winners in choice locations spanning from New Zealand and Long Island to East Lothian and beyond. “I’ve already heard from places like Chicago Golf Club and Royal Melbourne [my two remaining consulting clients], offering to host future winners,” Doak said.
Applications will be reviewed by a three-person committee consisting of Doak, one of his associates and Childress Hall managing member Arif Mawji, the main benefactor of the award. Three finalists will be selected to interview for the award in early 2027, with all interview-related travel expenses covered. The committee may award the full sum to one applicant or divide it among multiple winners.
Proposals for the inaugural Doak Award are due on or before Nov. 1, 2026. They should be emailed directly to Doak at doakgolf@aol.com with “Doak Award Proposal” in the subject line.
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