There is an explanation for how golf and its golfers fell into an abyss for many years.

“Our fixation with professional golf, you could argue, did a lot of damage to golf course architecture,” says Ran Morrissett, who cites the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s as being all about longer, harder, narrower.

“Cramped courses produce cramped minds.”

Ask him how golf worked its way out of this hole and Morrissett will point to a road map with routes through out-of-the-way places such as Mullen, Neb., and Coos County, Ore., and give credit to men such as Dick Youngscap and Mike Keiser.

Youngscap is the visionary who hired Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to build a brilliant, minimalistic golf course in the sandhills of Nebraska. Fascinated by this mode of golf course architecture, Keiser was an early investor in Youngscap’s project, even as he was looking at rugged land overlooking the Pacific in Oregon that was equally remote and just as sandy.

“We can’t thank Dick Youngscap and Mike Keiser enough,” said Morrissett. “They forever shifted the way in which proper golf courses would be built.”

Youngscap’s Sand Hills Golf Club is private, Keiser’s Bandon Dunes Golf Resort is public, but what they have in common is this: They correctly understood golfers’ willingness to travel long distances to play golf on courses that are interesting, imaginative, and fun.

“Keiser put golf on a pedestal,” said Morrissett. “He (and Youngscap) found spots that were ideal for golf – sandy, fescue fairways, running conditions. And golfers have rewarded him with their undying loyalty.”

Assess the phenomenon of Bandon Dunes (five 18-hole courses, a 13-hole short course, the 100,000-square foot Punch Bowl putting green, with another 18-holer and short course being built) in a multitude of ways, but here, in Morrissett’s mind, is the ultimate testament: “I don’t know of a person who has been to Bandon just one time.”

The praise from Morrissett flows forth not just for Sand Hills and Bandon, but for so much great work that has come online in the last 20 years.

“We are for sure in a second golden age of architecture and it’s super exciting,” said Morrissett, who doesn’t overlook the dramatic uptick in the social media world to devote serious time to architecture. “We’re winning with restorations and we’re winning with new courses.

“It’s neat to see the awakening going on.”

What’s neat about it, truth be told, is that Morrissett – born into a golf-happy family in Virginia where the built-in foursome was perfect, a father and three sons – deserves his fair share of credit for this resurgence of appreciation for quality golf course architecture.

“Ran took the good fortune of being born into a family of enthusiastic golfers and in turn shared that fortune by building a global community of golfers through golfclubatlas.com. He made golf better,” said David Normoyle, whose love of golf history rivals Morrissett’s passion for architecture.

Morrissett’s golfclubatlas.com is a treasure. Devoid of pop-up windows with screaming ads, it is a quiet stop in a world that is far too loud. Filled with richly-researched and well-written stories that pay homage to the love of good architecture, Morrissett started the website more than 20 years ago, at a time when he lived in Australia.

The motive was to help communicate with friends in the U.S. and in other corners of the golf world, hence the popular discussion groups that attract a wide audience.

“I never would have imagined (the popularity of golfclubatlas.com). It’s gratifying to bring people like this together,” said Morrissett, whose talents run much deeper than the website. He helped in the development of Cabot Links in Nova Scotia along with Keiser, Ben Cowan-Dewar, and Rod Whitman, and he’s the Architectural Editor at GOLF.

“He also has the rare gift of offering a wholly unexpected insight on some topic about golf – be it obscure or common,” said Normoyle, “and not only make you instantly rethink your entire philosophy prior to that point but be utterly annoyed that you didn’t have the ability to say it in a way that makes you laugh like you did when Ran first said it.”

Morrissett makes his home in Pinehurst, N.C., and plays much of his golf at Southern Pines. There is a style of golf he favors – he only walks and one out of every 10 rounds is played with hickory. “So much more satisfying, far more interesting,” he said.

Committed to walking, Morrissett lightens the load by using only nine clubs. “This is (for) the long game,” said the 59-year-old Morrissett. “I want to play when I’m 75.”

His suggested recipe for enjoyment is simple – “ignore handicaps, ignore scores, ignore yardages . . . re-connect to nature” – and while he clearly understands the aura of iconic golf courses such as Pine Valley and Augusta National and Pebble Beach, Morrissett’s love of nine-holers leads him to sing the praises of Culver Academies GC in Indiana, Hooper GC in Walpole, N.H., and contends that “nine holes are the perfect antidote for what ails you.”

Spend time talking with Morrissett and you are exponentially enriched about this world of golf course architecture. It also becomes abundantly clear that there is a big, wide world of passionate golf enthusiasts who care deeply for this segment of the game and very little for the sordid tussle between the PGA Tour and LIV.

“There’s such a disconnect between the game the pros play and the game I play,” said Morrissett. “I don’t particularly learn anything (by watching).”

With Bandon Dunes booked solid for months upon months, with Sand Valley in Wisconsin coming off a jam-packed summer, with Streamsong in Florida a popular winter spot, and with business at Pinehurst continuing to soar, Morrissett’s points are validated.

“The greatest way to build the game is through great architecture, not the PGA Tour,” he said.