Golf course architect Tom Doak could rightly be dubbed the Bill Gates of bentgrass. Not just because his humble mom-and-pop design shop has become a bit of a global behemoth but also because, with or without pocket protectors, Doak and Gates can easily be lumped together under that cruelest and most reductive of monosyllables: nerd.

There’s nothing wrong with nerdiness—if its defining characteristics include monomania, stern iconoclasm, and a distinct lack of regard for sartorial preoccupations.

“He remembers every hole he’s ever played, good or bad,” says the Chicago greeting-card magnate Mike Keiser, who enlisted Doak to design his Pacific Dunes course in Bandon, Oregon. Opened in 2001, it was named the country’s best resort golf course by Golfweek magazine in 2006—placing just ahead of Pebble Beach. “It is clear from Tom’s work that he has got it; he’s the architectural giant of his time.”

But the 46-year-old Doak doesn’t much care what you think of him or how he looks, especially since those qualities seem to attract other power nerds, like AOL co-founder Steve Case, who just announced that Doak would craft a course for Cacique, a luxury resort being created on $23 million worth of coastline in Costa Rica.

Several other Doak-designed courses are currently moving forward at full speed, including the Rock Creek Club in Missoula, Montana; the Renaissance Club on the historic Archerfield estate in Dirleton, Scotland; as well as an $11 million course called Wicked Pony, in Bend, Oregon. On Mexico’s golf-crazy Baja Peninsula, construction has begun on Bahia de los Sueños, and up near Denver, Doak’s complete redesign of Mira Vista, a once-modest layout on a former Air Force base, is under way.

These days, a price quote for a Doak original design falls near the top end of the field, a reported million dollars or so to buy his vaunted eye and faultless track record for delivering results on schedule and on budget—despite the fact that many people love Doak’s courses, plenty of others don’t particularly fancy him.

“He used to be called Terrible Tom for his outspokenness,” says Keiser, who claims to get along beautifully with Doak, “But he worked on that and now suffers fools well. Not that I’m a fool.”

After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in landscape architecture, Doak spent a summer caddying at St. Andrews, in Scotland, then played and studied every venerable course from the Royal Aberdeen to Carnoustie. Once he was stateside again, Doak apprenticed himself to designer Pete Dye, whose deviously tough courses, from Palm Beach to Palm Springs, are the bane of the everyday golfer’s existence.

Tom Doak’s obsession with classic courses has never flagged. He doesn’t just quote British design legend Alister MacKenzie on his company’s website; he co-wrote a biography of the man. He is also author of the no-holds-barred Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, which is now out of print and, at last look, was listed on eBay for $1,000. Within its pages, Doak offered his notoriously frank assessment of more than 800 layouts on six continents, earning him praise from the game’s conservative backbenchers and scorn from those vilified by his pointed judgments.

“I’ve been called a lot more names than most golf course architects,” Doak says, “but so, too, were my heroes in the business, MacKenzie and Dye. It’s good to be controversial, but I’m pretty sick of being described with that word. I’m not as much of a jerk as I’m portrayed as being.”