The Short Game
Located near the entrance to the property, the Short Game Area is equipped with three pitching, chipping and putting greens. It provides an invaluable opportunity to practice short shots from various angles. Because 70 percent of all golf shots are from inside 100 yards, time spent in this area represents the fastest way to improve your game.
The Course Architect
Fellow of the British Institute of Golf Course Architects; Honorary Secretary (1971-85), Chairman (1985-88), President (1989-91). Educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and Christ's College, Cambridge. Graduated Bachelor of Arts (1960). President, Hawks Club (1959-60).
Donald Steel's first golf course in the United States (and one of the first to be designed here by a Scotsman in over fifty years) was at Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina. Carnegie Abbey is now his second course. Donald Steel inaugurated his own company in 1987 with a clearly stated philosophy, forged during a career in golf course architecture spanning more than 30 years. The launch of his company marked the beginning of a period of great activity and achievement, constructing or redesigning over 100 golf courses in 20 countries. Steel has clearly established himself as one of the world's foremost links and traditional-style golf course architects.
The hallmarks of his work are an emphasis on top quality, based on technical and academic knowledge and attention to detail, combined with his philosophy of minimizing earth movement and blending a course layout into its natural surroundings. The results speak for themselves. Within the space of 18 months, the European Tour hosted events on four Steel courses: Vila Sol, described as "a world class design"; Forest of Arden, which a leading Tour official called "seriously good"; Gardagolf in Italy, referred to as "a course for the true expert and connoisseur"; and Barseback, in Sweden, "a potential Ryder Cup venue."
Donald Steel's reputation for work on seaside links, which he knows and loves so well, was recognized by his appointment as architect of the Carnegie Links at Skibo Castle in Scotland, three miles from Royal Dornoch. He was also responsible for the major redesign of the No. 2 course at Royal County Down, and the Arran course at Turnberry. The Carnegie Links, which hosted Shell's Wonderful World of Golf and is the first seaside links course to be built in Britain in the last 50 years, has been formally recognized as the second most environmentally friendly course in all of the United Kingdom. Golf World ranked it in 1996 as the best new course in the UK.
A considerable portion of Donald Steel's work has involved improving and upgrading existing courses. Advisory work has been carried out at over 400 clubs, including advice to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club on amendments to Open and Amateur Championship links, and a leading role in the St. Andrews Links Trust development program.
A sampling of the many accolades Mr. Steel's work has evoked:
"Donald Steel, a golf architect, whose sane adherence to traditional values has restored and enhanced a 6,671-yard, par-71 links layout of such stunning beauty that it will complement the Royal Dornoch course just three miles to the east. There can be no higher compliment, for Royal Dornoch is the best-kept secret among golf's cognoscenti."
-Ian Wooldridge, Daily Mail, January 28, 1995
"And those who follow the meanderings of modern golf know the Carnegie Castle as the site of a new links course designed by Donald Steel, one of the few architects capable of suppressing his ego long enough to produce a layout that is so utterly simple and natural. Steel gets my highest compliments. Blending unobtrusively into the links land, the course looks as if it could have been built by shepherds two centuries ago."
-James Achenbach, Golfweek, July 22, 1995
For 25 years, Mr. Steel combined the life of architect and writer, achieving the unique distinction of serving as President of the British Institute of Golf Architects and the Association of Golf Writers. He was golf correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph from 1961 to 1990 and of Country Life from 1983 to1993. He is the author of The Classic Links of Great Britain and Ireland, has edited thirteen editions of The Golf Course Guide to the British Isles (with the Daily Telegraph) and was co-editor of the Shell World Encyclopaedia of Golf, which Herbert Warren Wind described as one of the three most useful golfing reference books. He contributed to the section on golf course architecture in The World Atlas of Golf and edited two popular Bedside Books.
A golfer of international experience, Donald Steel was President of The Public Schools Golfing Society (1987-90). In addition, he played minor country cricket for Buckinghamshire.
Membership of clubs: Denham (Hon. Life); Royal and Ancient; Royal Worlington and Newmarket (Hon.); Harleyford (Hon.); West Sussex; Goodwood Park (Hon.); Tadmarton Heath (Hon.); The Oxfordshire (Hon.); Pine Valley USA; Vila Sol (Hon.); Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society; and Country Cricketers Golfing Society (Hon.).
