Source: Windsor (Ontario) Star
While his dad and brother considered the merits of hitting a wedge or nine-iron into the green, young Jeff Mingay had other things on his mind during a family round of golf.
Even as a kid, Mingay was more interested in the design of the hole than his score on it. He would pause to consider the shape of a bunker or the placement of a tree line in an effort to understand the architect's thought process.
The look and feel of the place was just so much more appealing than the game itself.
"I've always taken a real big interest in why a golf course is shaped the way it is. Whenever our family played golf, I was always looking at the features," said Mingay, who learned the game on the storied designs of Donald Ross at Roseland and Essex Golf & Country Club.
He's turned a childhood fascination into an adult career.
Besides running Mingay Golf out of his Windermere Road home, Mingay has collaborated with Alberta's Whitman Golf Course Design since 2001.
A new course he and Rod Whitman developed and opened near Edmonton, Blackhawk GC, was ranked second on Golf Digest's list of the best new Canadian golf courses for 2004. On his own, Mingay has received public recognition for his understanding of design and history from the Globe and Mail's Lorne Rubenstein.
"I got a book that changed my life in the ninth grade," said Mingay, referring to a copy of the World Atlas of Golf. "I almost failed science looking at it."
New career
Mingay eventually passed science and went on to graduate with a major in history from the University of Windsor. When he wanted to embark on a career in course architecture, Mingay sought out Whitman.
"I wanted to learn how to get on the equipment and shape the features," he said.
He knew Pete Dye was that type of architect, one who got his hands dirty and Whitman had worked with Dye.
"I tracked Rod down, and I basically forced myself into his life," Mingay said with a laugh.
When they met, the job interview was hardly conventional.
"Rod threw me into the fire. The first day I was with him, he put me on a bulldozer and said here's how you start it. I spent the whole day knocking around a pile of dirt."
The partnership has blossomed.
"We aren't a traditional outfit," Mingay said. "We spend 95 percent of our time on the site and we try to stay away from mail order plans. We like to be hands on."
Blackhawk was the first project they worked together from start to finish, with Mingay looking after the bunkers and Whitman taking care of the greens. Mingay also handles a lot of the marketing and client liaisons, both areas Whitman doesn't care for and the personable Windsorite is ideally suited to.
True to his college days, Mingay has become a golf historian. He's written a book on the history of the Essex club and he's regularly published in industry magazines. There's a contract for another book, this one on preserving the world's great golf courses and he's one of four writers entrusted with the job of updating that Grade nine distraction, the World Atlas of Golf.
This course-construction season could see him hitting both coasts with possible projects in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, not to mention one in Regina.
He finally got to leave his mark locally with some work last fall at Fox Glen where the ninth tee was rebuilt and the bunkers fronting the 16th green were reshaped.
"I did all the physical shaping work," he said. "I'd like to do more locally. Just rent me the bulldozer and I'll do it."
Mingay's top five
Windsor golf architect Jeff Mingay selected five of the most interesting local holes, including one par five, two par fours and two par threes.
"They aren't necessarily the best holes," Mingay said. "They simply possess interesting characteristics from a design perspective."
- No. 11: Fox Glen 197 yds par 3
- No. 12: Essex 178 yds par 3
- No. 3: Roseland 323 yds par 4
- No. 2: (w) Kingsville 345 yds par 4
- No. 18: Beach Grove 546 yds par 5
