The Future of Golf Course Architecture in America – Thesis (TPD0512013)

Chapter 1

Purpose of Study

The year is 1786 and The South Carolina Golf Club has called its first meeting to take place in what would become the club’s home on Harleston Green in Charleston. The strong Scottish presence in the Carolina colony made the city an obvious location for the first occurrence of the sport in the United States. Harleston Green was the large town green on the south and west point of the Charleston Peninsula and served as the first golfing grounds in the states. The tight sandy soil and windy conditions that existed along the banks of Charleston Harbor must have been eerily reminiscent of their homeland to these Scottish immigrants. The mild winter of the south made it possible to play the game throughout the year adding further to the similarities between the game that had been transferred across an ocean. Unfortunately this little piece of Scotland would not survive, as in the War of 1812 the area that was once Harleston Green was turned into a fort and eventually evolved into the present day Coast Guard Base. The game would not reappear in the United States for nearly a century but what might have been if these roots of the game would have survived as a model for those yet to come. Is it possible that the game would have held to the principles of the courses of its homeland? Would the grass be but a mixture of various species creating a more vibrant blend of greens rather than the monochromatic nature of our modern turfgrass stands? Would the bunkers be little more than  the shelters of burrowing sheep or the remnants of cannon fire from past wars? As  circumstances have proven, we will never have the answer to such questions. For the past 125 years the game of golf has been adapted by the Americans who have played it, creating a style and means of playing the game not before seen in its home country of Scotland.

Chapter 2

Technological Trends in Maintenance Practices

April 10, 1966. This was the date that technology first had an influence on the American public’s view of how a golf course should be maintained. This was the final round of The Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club and for the first time the tournament was broadcast in color by the Columbia Broadcasting Station (CBS). The green grass and the vibrant colors of the dogwoods and azaleas had every golfer across the country at his golf course superintendent’s doorstep demanding their course be as green and well maintained as Augusta National. While these practices had already infiltrated many of the country’s more wealthy private clubs, the public was getting its first look at what a golf course could look like, given the proper resources. Just as is the case today, the Augusta National of 1966 settled for nothing less than perfection in the conditioning of their course. This chapter will discuss the maintenance practices that created these conditions including breakthroughs in turfgrass science, mowing equipment, and irrigation that would dramatically change the look of golf courses in the United States.

The First Greenskeepers in The United States

The term greenskeeper originates from the broader sense of the word green. Historically, green was meant to describe all the grassed area of the golf course or just a large open expanse of a city park. The occupation of greenskeeper for a golf course often came with the added responsibility of acting as the golf professional and club maker for the golf club. The game of golf has been contiguously played in the United States since 1888, when the St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, NY was established¹. Over the next decade more than 1,000 courses would be created in the United States. This explosion of golf brought on a large immigration of Scottish men who had fulfilled the same role in courses in their home country, and often had worked under some of the most noteworthy greenskeepers of the day in Scotland; most famous among them was Old Tom Morris. “Old” Tom, to distinguish him from his son of the same name, is often called the father of golf due to the improvements he made to The Old Course at St. Andrews and the part he played in the standardization of the game. Old Tom Morris created the eighteen-hole layout at The Old Course from the twenty holes that had been played previously. An apprenticeship under such a legendary character boasted well with the American golf club members who were still quite new to the game and the conditions in which courses should be kept.

Reintroduction of Rough as a Hazard

As irrigation lines went from non-existent to single pipeline, and then double and triple pipelines that provide water to the entire golf hole, the consistency of rough increased. Before this innovation, courses depended upon the existing native grasses as the rough surrounding their fairways. This was the case with wiregrass of the sandhills of North Carolina which provided penalty for those golfers gone astray at Pinehurst, and the fescues of the Northeast that lay along the boundaries where piles of rock and brush discarded decades prior during construction. Such roughs provided ample penalty for the poorly struck shot but often, because of the lack of irrigation, the grasses were sparse enough that lost golf balls were not a concern. Today, in the construction of golf courses, often the entire property is reshaped by machinery, removing any of the existing vegetation, and then placing sod in its place. The result is a uniform playing surface, which can only be distinguished by the various mowing heights prescribed.

The return to such methods of penalization will protect the future of the game by providing a reduction in the need irrigation, and provide for the reemergence of rough as a hazard. The grasses designed as rough would follow the natural pattern of the seasons and the course would prove more difficult during various periods of the year when ample rainfall created greater lushness in the native grasses. While native grasses would create the greatest sense of place for courses of the various regions of country, other low maintenance grasses can serve a similar purpose. Species such as bahaigrass, most often used on the sides of highways, can produce a wonderful fine textured look while requiring minimal care. One example where this has been implemented in the design of a course is at Chechesee Creek Golf Club in Okatie, South Carolina. Here, architect Bill Coore prescribed the use of coastal Bermudagrass in the outlying roughs of the course. Coastal Bermuda is mainly used as a hay producer on farms in the Southeastern United States. The grass requires no more irrigation than that provided by nature and creates a challenge for the golfer due to the unpredictable way the golf ball will lie in the grass.

Designing Putting Greens for the Future

According to all accounts, the greatest Stimpmeter reading that can be accomplished through the limitation of friction is 18’. As golfers continue to desire greater green speeds, attention has turned to the cultivation of mosses to replace grass as the putting surface for increased speed. In 2002, construction began on the world’s first fully synthetic grass golf  course in Boulder, Colorado. The speeds that can be achieved through these methods leave little room for design in golf putting greens. Consider the following analogy. As you drive down a straight, flat Interstate at eighty miles per hour your level of interest, and the level of excitement is not particularly high. Now imagine yourself driving down a mountain road at forty-five miles per hour, winding through hairpin turns with steep cliffs flanking your car. Are you interested? Does your heart beat a little faster? This is the dilemma faced by golf course architects today as they design greens that must succumb to the high speeds for which the greens are going to be maintained and still provide interest. The putting green has been called the face of the portrait that is a golf hole, however what was once the source of much artistic license is become increasingly uniform. The 1 – 1.5 % maximum slope in an area appropriate to a hole location is often not distinguishable by the naked eye.

The goal in future green design must focus on the blending of pinable areas with a reemergence of bold swales and rises in the putting green surfaces. This movement will require the concentration of slope in what can be considered transition areas between hole locations. Slopes of 4 –7 % can be used to provide interest in putts traveling through the transition areas and bring back the conscious thought required to read the direction in which a putt will roll.  Such features in greens allow superintendents to increase green mowing height while maintaining the perception of high green speeds.

Another technology that is being used to increase the health of putting green turf is the use of heating and cooling systems in the subgrade. This system often referred to as cryogenics, requires the installation of tubing in a radiator-like pattern below the surface of the green allows for water from the irrigation system to be circulated through the green. Before circulating through the subsurface of the green, the water is heated or cooled to a desired temperature by an air conditioning unit then circulated in an effort to cool or warm the surface of the green. The water then returns to the air conditioning unit to be adjusted in temperature and the process is repeated.

Technologies such as these are impressive in terms of their ability to control the environment of a putting green and improve the quality of turf. The costs that are associated  with such technologies however make them unrealistic for a majority of golf courses in the United States. Designs in the future can limit the need for such innovations by relying more heavily upon tactics that reduce the need for specialized systems. Most simply employed is the maximizing of morning sunlight on putting greens. Merely by placing greens in areas where there is little shade created from the east, allows for greater rates of evaporation to take place in morning hours, thus reducing the period in which moisture is on the turfgrass surface. Another way to create greater evaporation is by increasing circulation around greens. This can be done  by paying close attention to the prevailing winds of a site and creating corridors that allow for that wind to move through the golf hole more frequently. This tactic can also improve the interest in playing a course, since the wind is more likely to be a factor on any given day.

The other rather obvious tactic in creating more maintainable golf courses is the use of more regionally suitable turfgrasses. The progress made in the hybridization of Bermudagrass shows that in the future green speed will be indistinguishable from Bermuda to Bentgrass. In the mean time, any difference in speed can be quickly resolved simply by adding severity to greens and holding to a more liberal 1.5 % to 2 % slope in pinable areas. Green speed is more often an issue of perception than actual measurement and the creation of more undulating green complexes will leave players with the perceptions that the greens were faster than they might actually be.

Function was followed by form in many early putting greens. These greens were built on native soil and designed with surface drainage in mind, and the interest of meandering putts was the byproduct of the flow of water. Today, the stringent guidelines for creating a green drive the cost of construction upwards and leave little room for exploration in design. By reestablishing the importance of surface drainage in design of golf greens, the emphasis on an expensive multi- layered subgrade can be lessened and greens can be more affordably constructed. To reiterate, the need for green speed has led to new cultivars that require more specific growing conditions. These conditions include the need for greater drainage. However, the increased green speeds make it difficult to balance the slopes needed for surface drainage and the slopes appropriate for playing golf. This paradox leaves a decision to be made by the golf course architect and the golf course developer as to which direction their course should move. The ability to provide high green speeds will require the careful construction of greens to provide an adequate environment for the new hybrid turfgrasses. A less rigorous construction method would leave the designer with the need to insure surface drainage and would require the specifying of a less fragile turfgrass cultivar. In this case, green speeds will be lessened in terms of the measurements taken by a Stimpmeter, but perceived green speed will show little difference. The label of Bentgrass greens and the history of its superiority make it a strong marketing tool for golf courses hoping  to attract new members or daily fee players. Overcoming this common belief is essential to decreasing the costs associated with golf course construction, thus making the game more available to all those who have interest in playing.

The Gutta Percha golf ball would reign as the standard in golf for nearly fifty years and was the ball that many of America’s early courses were played with. However, in the early 1900s, the golf ball was again revamped and again its new merits were not only in its durability but its distance as well.¹ The new Haskell golf ball consisted of a plastic cover and wound  rubber bands that made up the core. The wound golf ball was also the first occurrence of the concave dimples that are now a recognizable feature of the golf ball. This design was a refinement of scuffing the surface of the Gutta Percha ball, which created a similar, albeit a less significant, effect of lessening wind resistance.

The wound rubber ball would travel what was then an amazing 230 yards, nearly 100 yards greater than the standard fifty years earlier. This 230-yard distance became the basis of design for many of America’s most cherished golf courses. The strategy in designing golf holes during this period was largely based upon the distance a well-struck shot would travel in the air. That distance was somewhat less than provided by modern golf equipment and therefore the distance required to create challenging one, two and three shot holes was less than that of today.

The History of the Golf Ball  Figure 3.1

Distance Gained in Golf Ball Technology Chart 3.1

Golf Club Shaft Improvements

During the late 1920’s, the business of clubmaking would also be the subject of dramatic change. Up to this point, golf clubs had consisted of metal heads ground down by hand and attached to a hickory wood shaft. As steel became more readily available, wooden club shafts were replaced with steel shafts, lessening the torque on the club head at impact. This created a greater squareness of strike from that of the hickory stick shafts, generating further distance for golfers. Steel shafts were also much easier to make consistent among all of the clubs in a set.  The USGA legalized the use of steel shafts in 1927, and by the 1930s they were in widespread use among American golfers, including golf course architect Donald J. Ross.³ Similar to that of mowing equipment, the technology involved with golf club shafts changed little in the middle portion of the twentieth century. Then, in the 1970’s the Shakespeare Sporting Goods Company began to experiment with alternatives to steel shafts. Union Carbide was providing graphite fibers for use by NASA, in pressure vessels and structural sections of its aircraft. This material piqued the interest of then Chief Design Engineer for Shakespeare, Frank Thomas. Shakespeare, better known for its fishing rods and reels, produced the world’s first graphite shaft. The  material was 14 times stronger than steel of the same weight creating a lightweight shaft that is possible to swing with greater speed while expending the same amount of energy⁴. This combination creates an addition of on average five yards of distance compared to that of steel shafts.

Today, graphite shafts are widely used, especially in drivers, where distance is often the most important element. Here again, evidence of decreasing benefits in each step of the progression of technology in shafts leads one to believe there is little distance left to be gained through this equipment.

The Rise of the Sand Wedge and the fall of The Bunker

In 1926, the first patent was issued for a “sand iron” to a gentleman named Edwin MacClain from Houston, Texas. Many tournament players,  including Bobby Jones, used the club but due to its concave design, the club was deemed illegal in 1931 and banned from play by the USGA. The spoon-like clubface made contact with the ball twice upon impact projecting it first upward, then forward onto the adjacent putting green.⁵ A second attempt at increasing the ease with which a golfer can free the ball from a sand bunker was made in 1933 by Gene Sarazen. His design was produced under the Wilson Sporting Goods label “R-90” and proved to be a valid one in which one basic change was made to conventional golf clubs. To promote the lifting of a ball out of loose sand or thick rough, additional material was added to the bottom of the club to create an angle between the ground plane and the bottom of the club. This angle is known as “bounce”. The bounce of a club, ranging from six to twelve degrees, allows it to slide underneath the ball at rest in sand without digging excessively deep into the sand. The ball is then lifted out of the hazard along with a thin layer of the sand that lay below it. Prior to this invention, the difficulty of bunkers made them a hazard whose avoidance was imperative. However, since the 1930’s, the sand bunker has become an increasingly tame beast for the golfer to slay. The continued refinement of the sand wedge, coupled with the increased playability of bunkers provided by maintenance practices, has made this part of the game a lesser challenge for the golfer.

The Anatomy of the Sand Wedge Figure 3.2

Unlike a conventional iron, the sand wedge’s bounce angle keeps the club for continuing downward into the sand.

The over-watering of golf courses makes the low, running style of play relatively rare, and makes players focus entirely on the aerial attack that has become the defining characteristic of American golf. By reintroducing these elements of interest into the ground around putting green complexes, while engaging in more sustainable maintenance practices, golf courses can be designed to welcome players of all skill level. The ability to hit a golf ball a desired distance, within a matter of feet, is a great achievement, but a skill that is realized by less than 1% of all the golfers in the world. Building courses in a manner that challenges the best players takes little creativity and can be done quite objectively. According to golf course architect Donald Ross, “The ideal course is one that presents a test of golf for the everyday golfer and the first-class player.”⁶ This has been the hope of many and the proclamation of all golf course architects in America over the past century. However, as technology has moved forward, golf courses have only further separated “the men from the boys”, so to speak, in efforts to confront the abilities of a few, while inconveniencing the majority. Exacting shots that require the player to play the game through the air are not inherently evil, and can be used in moderation to provide a proper level of challenge for the player. This usually means controlling the point at which a player will attempt such a shot. This characteristic points towards the use of a Par 3 hole as an outlet for such shots. The distance from the tee provides the appropriate challenge and the implementation of multiple tees allows for the enjoyment of players of all skill levels.

The Titanium Era and the Great Driving Debate

In the mid-1980s a contradiction began. This contradiction was that the clubs that have long been known as woods began to be made of metal. Manufacturers first introduced steel club heads to replace those made of persimmon. In the early 1990s club heads were increased in size to enlarge the area of truest strike, or the “sweet spot”. This change proved troublesome for the production of steel club heads due to steel’s limitations in thickness. When the club head was enlarged, the steel walls of the club head were made thinner to keep overall weight down. When tested, these clubfaces began to collapse at impact. For this reason, club heads could not be  made any larger out of steel and be durable enough for play. So began the use of titanium in the production of golf club heads.⁷ The titanium head could withstand thinner walls without collapsing but an interesting effect did result, higher initial ball speed. What had been created was a spring-like effect that can best be described by Newton’s second law.

The coefficient of restitution (COR) measures the efficiency in a collision between two bodies. For instance, when a ball is dropped from a tenth floor window it will bounce back some fraction of the total distance that it was dropped. If it were to bounce back as high as the seventh floor, the COR of the ball and the ground would be .70. Intuition reminds us that this ball will never bounce all the way back to the tenth floor window from which it was dropped, and physics tells us that the practical limit in which it might rebound is just past the ninth floor, or .93 in terms of COR. If anyone were ever able to create a collision between two objects that exceeded 1.0, they would be creating energy and, consequently very rich.

The titanium-faced golf club deforms and recovers at impact, taking some of the deformation and energy that would otherwise be taken up by the golf ball. This lessening of the compression of the golf ball increases the COR thus creating a spring-like effect. A look at the history of the rules of golf will show us that this should in fact be an illegal property of a club head. In 1909 rules on the subject first were introduced to read, “club should not contain any contrivances such as springs.”⁸ In the mid 1950s the rule was revised to cover the use of any finish that might be applied to the club head “unduly influencing the movement of the ball.”⁹ Then, in 1984 Appendix II was amended to read “The clubface should not be designed and manufactured to have the effect at impact of a spring which would unduly influence the movement of the ball.”¹⁰ This rule has remained unchanged since then, but recent additions have created some divergence in the rules of conformity. The USGA directly addressed the COR  issue in 1998 by setting a limit for woods made of metal at .822 with a test tolerance of .008, bringing the limit to .830.¹¹ This is approximately .05 above that of creating a spring-like effect and has brought an increase of nearly fifteen yards in distance since the late 1980s.

Technology in terms of the golf clubs is nearing an end of additional distance it can provide. Even if the USGA were to allow for greater COR value in clubs, that value could only equate into a distance gain less significant than the fifteen yards produced in the last fifteen years.¹² This again points towards the laws of diminishing returns and gives some hope for a more concrete and lasting standard in length of the course.

The Coefficient of Restitution Chart 3.2

Limits of C.O.R. Figure 3.3

The Lengthening of the Course

Many golf course architects of the early twentieth century were conscious of the effects that technology would have on their courses in the future. In his book, Golf Architecture, Alister Mackenzie lists his 13 principles in designing a golf course. One of these principles is “there is a slight walk forwards from the green to the next tee; then the holes are sufficiently elastic to be lengthened in the future if necessary.”¹³ The lengthening of golf courses as a means to counteract the effect of technology has become commonplace among golf course architects in recent years, continually renovating many older courses. These courses, most of which were built around the 1920s have been stripped of much of their strategic character due to the new distance standards in golf equipment. The Haskell golf ball made it possible for players to hit their drives about 60% of the distance they are able today. For this reason, golf courses have taken action by  adding length to the holes. This practice is likely to continue into the future for those courses  that have yet to be updated, and for those who feel it necessary to make further renovations due to any added distance the future may provide. However, this does not mean that each hole  should be lengthened to the point that a driver is the obvious choice of club on the tee of every par four and five. Much to the contrary, golf courses should provide some rhythm, presenting  the golfer with variety among the first shots on various holes. This was the original intent of many of the courses that are now being “restored” in the name of technology and this point is often overlooked. While some golf holes that measure a mere 365 yards maybe defenseless against today’s 300-yard drives, some were simply meant to provide the player with a decision to be made off the tee. Looking deeper at such a hole might show that the astute approach to the hole is one of restraint, where the player who hits an iron off the tee is provided a better angle of attack or view of the hole. Due to the recent increase in distance, the positioning of the elements of the golf hole that provide such strategy may be out of place by five, ten, or even twenty yards. However, the need to add fifty or more yards to such a hole would be as if you were playing the wrong note entirely in an otherwise well-composed symphony. Not only does the addition of excessive length confuse the flow of the course, it can also lessen the defense of the hole by being too clear in its intentions.

One course that has been clearly documented in its continual battle with increasing driving distance is Augusta National Golf Club. Over the past five years, Augusta National Golf Club has gone from being 6,985 yards to the nearly 7,400 yards it will play for the 2006 Masters Tournament. A 415-yard increase over just five years shows the impact that technology has had on the game just since the release of the first metal headed “wood” club in the early 1990s. The stated mission of Augusta National Golf Club is the restoration of the shot values that existed on the course prior to the driving distance explosion of the last two decades.¹⁴ Through a combination of steps, decisions are made by the club to add length to holes and make changes in order to make the course play more like it did upon its conception in the 1930s. This requires  that the well-struck tee shot end up in the originally designed landing area. By doing this, the course will reclaim much of the original rhythm designed by Alister Mackenzie by requiring a variety of shots by the player.

A good candidate for restoration similar to that of the charge of Augusta National is the fifth hole on the South Course at Athens Country Club in Athens, Georgia. This par four was designed by the golf course architect Donald Ross in 1927 and has lost much of its character due to technology. The 340-yard hole is straightaway, and has bunkers on either side of the fairway at approximately 240 yards from the tee. There is also a deep swale running through the fairway that must be carried in order to have a clear view of the putting green. This swale undoubtedly was a major concern for the player in the middle of the twentieth century, but hardly comes into view of the modern golfer. This is partially due to its subtlety as a hazard, something not often recognized by the modern golfer more apt to aiming at the center and firing away. It is neglected also due to its distance from the tee, a mere 190-yard carry from the furthest teeing ground. Another element that has disrupted the rhythm of this hole is the retrofitting of the cart path down the left side of the hole. The path was brought inside of the fairway bunker, making the bunker seemingly unimportant and not a part of the hole’s design. However, due to the orientation of the green, angled away from the player from left to right, I would argue that this bunker played a major role in the strategy of the hole upon its conception.

One element of design Ross was famous for was his ability to alternate the type of shot that was best suited for play from left-to-right, or right-to-left. Here, it can be suggested that the best-suited shot off the tee was a right-to-left shot, placing the ball close to the fairway bunker, just beyond the deep swale. From here, the left-to-right shot would allow the player the best angle into the putting green. The addition of some length, on the order of twenty to thirty yards, would allow for the deep swale to better infiltrate the player’s vision from the tee. Also, by removing the cart path and shifting the tee to the left, the hole would better indicate the right-to- left line of the tee. These changes would return the player to the originally designated landing area, bringing back the alternating effect originally designed by Ross.

This practice of adding length must also be done with careful consideration of the economic impact of additional land purchases. The growth of American cities often caused  many golf courses that were once a full day’s trip from the city to be landlocked on all sides by urban development. This poses a major problem for these clubs when faced with changing standards in the length of a golf course. Courses that have long been considered the best in the country, such as Merion Country Club in Philadelphia, PA, are now considered obsolete due to their length. Merion Country Club measures 6,412 yards from the back tees.¹⁵ This is a far cry from the 7,000-yard mandate that many golf course architects feel is necessary to provide a true test and maintain a par for the course of 70 or better. Merion Country Club has nowhere to grow in its immediate surroundings, making it impossible to expand its present yardage. Other courses that do have the ability are purchasing adjacent properties in order to update their course. While those that are already established have little choice but to make some well-reasoned changes, the charge of golf course architects in the future should be to find ways to create playing length without expanding the physical yardage needed to create interesting and challenging courses.

Athens Country Club, South Course Hole Number 6 Figure 3.4

Creating an Experience through Perceived Distance

It is believed that, being governed by the laws of physics, the golf ball can only travel between 10 and 15 yards further than it does presently. This increase takes into account the physical limitations of the coefficient of restitution in club heads, as well as other technologies in the equipment earlier discussed. Today, the best golfers in the world are averaging slightly greater than 300 yards with their drives according to PGA Tour statistics. In 1968 that number was closer to 275 yards. With all data pointing towards an end in the benefits of technology in playing equipment, it is sensible for golf course architects to design their golf courses with some amount of elasticity, such that distances can be adjusted to accommodate for this possible ten to fifteen yard increase.

However, the wild card in this equation is that of the human being. The increasing consciousness of health and fitness has made us stronger and bigger than ever before. Technology has played a role in this, providing opportunity to analyze the golf swing, identifying the muscles used, and isolating them for specialized training. So while physics may limit us within what is thought to be human abilities, those abilities may also progress just as golf equipment has done over the last two centuries. For this reason, designing golf courses based on length as a major defense is likely to be unsuccessful both strategically and financially. Instead of catering to the hunger of golfers to swing seemingly aimlessly into broad open expanses, creating a great rhythm of shot sequences and a hierarchy of risk and reward for the straight as well as long hitter, can provide an opportunity to hit the all important driver on any given hole, but the choice to do so should not be without consequence.

Design Hierarchy Figure 3.5

The Various lines of play on this hole show how each player will have the chance to decide their level of risk in the tee shot. Notice how the shots that leave the player the shortest approach shot are also the smallest targets.

Distance in Relation to Scoring

While architects and the golfing public continue to raise red flags about the distance that today’s player is able to hit a golf ball it is important to note that the increase in distance has had little effect on scoring. Since 1995, scoring average on the Professional Golfers Association  Tour (PGA Tour) has actually increased by more than one-quarter stroke.¹⁶ The same can be  said for that of the average golfer in the United States whose scoring average has remained around 100, prior to and since the introduction of technologies such as square grooves, titanium metal woods and the modern golf ball. Consider this relationship between driving distance and scoring average. Today, the best players in the world are hitting the golf ball nearly twenty-five yards longer than they did in 1968 but are actually scoring worse. Since, as the old golf saying goes, “its not how you drive, but how you arrive”, it is my opinion that less emphasis can be placed on increasing the length of the course beyond 7,800 yards as some recently designed courses have done and instead focus on returning rhythm and variety to golf courses. More emphasis should be placed on challenging the golfer’s restraint in shot selection off of the tee. Golf course architects should take comfort in the fact that there will always be the player who looks to overpower such rhythms, for that is where subtle defenses can be created to challenge distance domination. By balancing the number of holes that play right to left and left to right, each individual will be challenged and rewarded in accord with their strengths and weaknesses.

PGA Tour Driving Distance Chart 3.3

This chart is reflective of the PGA Tour’s leader in driving distance since 1980.

PGA Tour Scoring Average Chart 3.4

This chart is reflective of the PGA Tour’s leader in scoring average since 1980.

Resistance of Scoring Average Figure 3.4

Designing courses that provide adequate challenge to players equipped with modern technologies requires careful attention to detail, in design and in construction. Today’s golf course architects are too often fixtures in an office, churning out designs that show little of the detail to such subtleties needed to create interest. While there are some who have taken an initiative to limit their work regionally, or take no more than one project at a time, the majority still rely heavily on the ability of general contractors to interpret their design effectively. Eventually, each golf course architect should make a decision about his involvement during construction. If the commitment to being on site at any given project is low, the architect should take extra care in developing plans that are articulate, and easily interpreted by a contractor. This will ensure that the work bearing the architect’s name will reflect their philosophy satisfactorily. While a golf course may cover a vast amount of acreage and be reflective of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of earth moving, it is often a few shovels of dirt that make the most profound impact on how a course will play.

Francis Ouimet was the son of a French immigrant father and Irish mother. The family lived along the perimeter of The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, and young Francis took employment with the club as a caddy. The game of golf piqued his interest and Ouimet began to play in whatever open field he could find at an early age. In 1919, when Ouimet was nineteen years of age, The United States Open Championship was to be held at The Country Club at Brookline and the club’s professional, along with one of its members saw to it that Ouimet would be admitted to the field as an amateur golfer. Amateurs had always been allowed to play in the USGA’s championships, however it was required that a golf club would sign off on the player as competent for such a level of competition. This meant that all the amateurs contending for these championships were of the upper class, able to afford the luxuries that come with being the member of a private club. The rest of the amateurs competing, all members of a higher social class, cast out Ouimet thinking it inappropriate that a man of such low social class should not have the right to play in the tournament. When Ouimet tied with Scotland’s Harry Vardon and Ted Ray after the final round, Ouimet became the crowd favorite in the playoff and was treated as a hero when victorious over the Scotsmen. His victory gave hope to others in the working class of America that they could also be successful in what had previously been a game only for the elite of America. More cities, both large and small began to create municipal golf courses both of the nine and eighteen hole varieties and by the middle of the 1920’s many cities had multiple facilities, such as Toledo, Ohio, which boasted three municipal courses in 1926.

In recent years, the rise in celebrity of golf professionals has lead to the “player/designer” tag as a stereotype of golf course architects. Often this requires very little input from what is thought to be the architect and has become a tremendous marketing tool to sell lots in golf course community developments. A look back in history shows us that a similar phenomenon took  place in the early 1900s among golf professionals of the era. The saying “eighteen stakes in a Sunday” refers to the act of a notable golf professional visiting a town with intentions of taking a commission for designing a golf course and simply walking a site, placing stakes in the ground along the way to mark desired tee and green locations. While this process is much further  refined by today’s professional player/designer, the result tends not to identify with the environment in which it is built. It is interesting to note that nearly all of the courses that have survived as America’s finest were those designed by architects less celebrated in their own era that lived lives of relative obscurity in comparison to the touring professional. The future will provide a similar result in which examples of our modern architecture will survive. A few more generations of professional golf course architects, whose playing ability will be unimportant, will lead to greater appreciation for the field and provide a platform for it to stand alone as a discipline of study.

From Private to Public Golf

The game received a further advancement in the 1960s when television brought the game to life and exposed the American public to characters like Arnold Palmer whose playing ability and charisma shone through on the course. This blue-collared character from a steel mill town of Pennsylvania was an instant hit with the American working class of the 1960s and led to the explosion of another type of course. The municipal courses of the United States had been very successful throughout their existence but have lacked adequate supply of golfing opportunity for the rising number of golfers in the United States. For this reason “pay as you play” or what is now known as daily fee golf courses began to be built at a record pace in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Daily fee courses are often associated with real estate developments and are privately owned courses open to the public. Golfers would pay greens fees for a single round at a time;  this provided flexibility for those who could not afford the full costs associated with joining a private club and gave golfers the opportunity to play a variety of courses, rather than being a member of just one. Donald Ross, prior to his death in 1948, foresaw this stating, “I also see a brilliant future for the pay-as-you-enter golf courses of America,” calling it a “tremendously big new industry.”³ The desire for variety in the courses that American golfers were playing led to the boom in golf course construction during the 1980s and 1990s. The daily fee course brought an increase in the golfing population due to the lessening of the economic commitment necessary to play golf. Today, the casual golfer has more opportunity to play just one round a month or even less, without having to pay membership fees. The increased amount of golf facilities in the country put less decreased the distance in which all Americans live from a golf course. The importance of such proximity to Americans has been reflected in the rise in popularity of the golf course community.

The Rise of Minorities in Golf

In 1996, Tiger Woods made the decision to become a professional golfer, leaving Stanford University to pursue a career on the PGA Tour. Woods, the son of a Thai woman and African-American man immediately drew international attention for his talent, but also because of this race. Golf has long been seen as a predominantly Anglo-Saxon game in which very few African-American players had ever played at the professional level. Tiger Woods became an instant role model for millions of minorities around the country, providing an example of possibility for achievement most had never thought possible. Within two years of Woods’ first win at The Masters Tournament, the number of minority golfers rose over 100 % from what it had been in 1990.⁴ The growth in the game led to creation of many initiatives to provide opportunity for people to play golf that otherwise would not have had the chance. One of these initiatives was The First Tee organization.

The First Tee has a mission “To impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and educational programs that promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf.”⁵ In this case, the game of golf is being used as a vessel in which a much greater message is being carried. Through the program’s nine core values (See Appendix I) The First Tee teaches kids life lessons that hope to build future generations who are strong in character and leadership abilities.⁶ The program is also providing a service to the golf industry by expanding its client base to people that may otherwise never be exposed to golf.

The facilities that are being created around The United States, Australia, and Canada are not full-scale golf course developments. Instead, the facilities are usually created on tracts of land, often funded by municipalities, of approximately forty acres. This acreage provides room for a practice facility as well as anywhere from three to nine golf holes. While this program targets children of ages five to seventeen, the facilities open their doors to all golfers, young and old and are often located in urban areas making them more accessible than full scale courses, which require three times the land. These facilities can often be created as brown-field developments: a piece of land that a manufacturing plant may have once called home, but now sits idle in an otherwise bustling city. The reclaiming of lost green space provides a reprieve for the heat island effect that influences most cities as well as providing a service to the community.

When listing the most famous golf holes in the country, rarely if ever does a hole from a nine-hole executive course enter one’s thoughts. However, there is no valid reason why holes at such facilities cannot provide as much enjoyment as those associated with America’s most cherished clubs. As an architect, one might see opportunity within a small piece of property to create a unique and interesting golf hole. The fact that there might only be room for eight more holes to complement such a notable example of architecture should not lessen the merit of what has been created. If good golf holes are created in facilities such as these, they can produce just as much attention as full-scale golf courses.

Hypothetical First Tee Facility Figure 4.1

Nine holes and a driving range have been fit to this forty-acre site by enlisting the use of double greens. The short walk from greens to tees and the scale of the golf holes provides a comfort  size for the courses target audience.

Golf’s Time Dilemma

The PGA of America says that the amount of time that it takes to play golf is the number one reason why more people do not play, and that people who do play, do so less often than they would otherwise. There exists no better way to lessen the time commitment than by providing ample opportunity to play courses that take less time to get to, and less time to play. In a study performed in preparation for the GOLF 20/20 conference in 2002, 62 % of golfers who quit playing the game of golf listed the reason for doing so as “don’t have time to play.”⁷ When it is considered that the average round of golf takes approximately four hours to complete, this response comes as little surprise. For this reason, The PGA of America has made it the goal of  its golf club professionals to lower the time commitment and raise the value of the golf experience. One way the PGA is attempting to put such an initiative in place is with a list of best management practices that are made available to its professionals. One of these practices is to “Aggressively market the idea of playing nine-hole rounds and establish a special price. If your golf course allows, look at a three- or four-hole loop that you can sell to those looking for an hour of golf in the early mornings or late evenings (often on the back nine before morning front nine players make the turn). Actively promote the idea of playing more golf often for less  money, in two hours or less.”⁸ The ideas laid out in this practice should immediately strike golf course architects as something in which they can have an active role. By creating smaller loops of holes that return to a central point, the opportunity to play four- to six-hole rounds would be easily accomplished.

This possibility would be of interest to those 62% of golfers who claim to have too little time to play golf. These golfers could now play an hour in the morning before work or in the evening after work without being faced with becoming caught in the dark long distances from where they started playing. Management plans for organizing play on such layouts might allow for play on the final holes for the first two to three hours of regular tee times with out disrupting the flow of golfers starting on the first tee. Again in the afternoon, this practice may be done on the first holes where play intended for eighteen holes might refrain from teeing off within four hours of sunset; players could fill these tee times with intentions of playing only the first few golf holes and still be returned to the clubhouse area.

The second most frequent response to why golfers do not play more and why non-golfers do not play golf is listed as family obligations. This poll, taken in the fall of 2002, showed a major increase in this response, from previous polls. This is thought to be due in part to the importance in family reestablished in the American people after the events of September 11, 2001. The PGA of America’s President, Roger Warren, has addressed the issue of family by creating a Family Tee Program at the facility where he acts as General Manager, Kiawah Island Resort. The program sets aside open tee times in the evenings at fifteen-minute intervals (as opposed to the normal 8-10 minute interval) in which children play free when accompanied by a paying parent. The tee locations are moved substantially closer to the greens, providing families the opportunity to play golf together in an environment suitable for enjoyment of all levels of player. “Programs such as Family Tee are identifying golf as a family activity again,” according to Warren, who created the President’s Council on Growing the Game in January of 2005.⁹ The council’s mission is to provide ideas in which to create more involvement out of key demographics identified in a 2003 study performed by DYG Incorporated, a time-management firm.

Hypothetical Tee Time Plan Chart 4.1

Reasons Why Golfers Leave the Game Chart 4.2

Golf continues to serve as a frequent place of business for many business people in America. The increase in women in the American business world further explains the high numbers of women that have shown interest in playing golf. Women now hold the majority of advanced degrees in the United States and bring in an equal or greater amount of income in 55% of the homes in the country.¹⁰ Their purchasing power is evident in every facet of the American way of life, especially in where they and their families live, a decision that is reportedly 92% driven by women.

Throughout the history of golf in America, there have been people who have acted as role models and sources of inspiration for various groups of would be golfers. Today, a rising young star named Michelle Wie may provide this inspiration for young women throughout the United States. Wie’s popularity will undoubtedly be boosted by the commercial factors of being backed by some of today’s widely recognizable symbols such as Nike and Sony. Her youth, talent, and multicultural roots draw immediate comparisons to Tiger Woods, whose impacts continue to be seen in today’s society. Wie may provide a similar boost for women golfers to that of Woods’ impact on minority golfers. The increase in women golfers, as well as other groups of new golfers, brings equal importance on building golf holes for the forward and middle tee boxes, as is given to the championship tee boxes. The attention to such details will further enhance the experience for the beginning golfer, often found in these key demographics.

A Radial Golf Hole Figure 4.3

Here is an example of how the angle of a hole can be an effective tool for providing difficulty for various levels of golfers. This par three is the same distance from every tee. The orientation of the green, as well as the differing elevations of the tees provides a more difficult test for the strong player, while being playable for the weaker player.

In Suburban Nation the authors provide a checklist for the development of a traditional neighborhood. In this checklist, careful attention is paid to the hierarchy of street widths, in  order to control the speed of cars, and also the order of density in which a community is developed. The suggestions involved with the density of a development suggest that it should increase from the edge to the center. The edge of a development however should be “roughly a five-minute walk-a quarter mile-from edge to center” thus creating the same types of environment that exist in an entire American city, on a much smaller, more human scale.¹¹ The more intimate situation of homes along the street edges also adds to this sense of community more than that of the suburban half-acre lot with homes set well back on the property.

A similar set of guidelines is being produces by LEED for the construction of “Compact, Complete, and Connected Neighborhoods” and provides similar suggestions in terms of building size and density and street width hierarchy. Mixed-use developments such as this can provide people with greater chances to interact with one another as well as addressing the issue of time management and consequently the desire to meet family obligations.

The Radial Golf Course

By bringing people more closely together in their daily lives and providing for greater chance of interaction the ingredients of community still lack some common thread. Golf can provide this commonality for a community, just as it has for centuries in the British Isles. Imagine a neighborhood that, instead of simply being adjacent to, is integrated with a golf course. The corridors of such a course could have a great deal of impact on the community by providing pathways to and from the center of a community. Prospect-Refuge theory suggests  that humans are instinctively edge animals. By providing edges that lead from the outer limits of a community inward from all directions to the center of circulation, a golf course can provide scenic pathways to and from daily activities, uninterrupted by automobile traffic. Such a design not only serves the community well, but also is a good model for the routing of a golf course, where several loops of three to five holes can be made to return to the town’s center, and rarely would any two holes play in the same direction consecutively.

Radial Golf Course Community Concept

Figure 4.4 The multiple loops of holes make short rounds possible, as well as creating a routing that  features holes arranged in a wide variety of directions. The golf hole corridors can also provide an enjoyable, natural path from the community’s center to its edge.

St. Andrews Golf Links and Town Figures 4.5 and 4.6

The relationship between the town of St. Andrews and its golf courses is shown above looking down the first and eighteenth holes at The Old Course.

Finding a common thread to connect people is crucial in the rebuilding of America’s sense of community lost as development has sprawled out across the landscape of the United States. Producing an environment where people can commune under the umbrella of a common interest will breed an intangible element of design that can only be measured by the quality of life of the people who live, play, and work within these types of developments.

Chapter 5

Architectural Trends Driven by Environmental Concerns

The general belief that golf courses are fundamentally bad for the environment is an opinion that is largely based on emotion and intuition rather than on fact and logic. Throughout the history of golf in America, golf courses have been built in environmentally sensitive areas and have followed similar trends in maintenance to that of parks, residences, and other areas that are largely turf. In recent years, golf courses have fallen under continued scrutiny as destructive elements of the environment, and claims have even been made that golf courses use 4 to 7 times more pesticides than American farms. Claims such as this one, made in a New York State Attorney General’s report are sorely misrepresentative of golf courses and the impacts they have on the environment.¹ Just as the country’s agricultural practices, recreational facility management, and others have evolved in the way turf is maintained, so have golf courses. In this chapter, we will discuss the changing way that golf courses have been designed, constructed, and maintained in the United States. The form of golf courses can be easily linked to the  functionality provided by the trends of the time of its conception.

The Golden Age of Golf Design

These trends in the American way of life have come to define the style of architects of  the various periods of history of golf course architecture. The first of these is that of “The  Golden Age of Golf Design” that is deemed to have existed from the early 1900s up to World War II. This era in golf design brought forth the artistry often associated with one’s ability to seamlessly blend the built environment into what existed. This was a period in American history that was absent of heavy earth moving equipment such as bulldozers, backhoes, and other mass grading tools. Instead architects such as Donald Ross, Alister Mackenzie, and A.W. Tillinghast relied on the mule-driven plow and great amounts of manual labor to move the earth required to design green and tee complexes. For this reason, the routing of a golf course was of the utmost importance, in order to “take advantage of every existing feature that can be seen.” The words of Donald Ross ring true to his style of his courses that were built from 1898 through 1945 in North America.² Making sure to use all the naturally occurring features of a property allowed the architects of this era to design their courses within what was there, rather than constructing a vision that may have only existed within their own minds. This was a time when the study of the world’s most famous golf holes was a necessity for would-be architects to gather the understanding of strategy and beauty that good golf holes possess.

This time period was the origin of many of America’s most cherished courses, many of which were built in some of America’s most treasured and fragile environments. On the Monterey Peninsula in Northern California, Cypress Point Golf Club was more discovered than it was constructed, along the rocky cliffs of the Pacific Ocean and winding inland through vast dunes. The golf course is an integral part of the environment in which it exists. These are green spaces, woodlands, and dunes that will never be lost to the construction of condominiums, ocean front resorts or commercial development. The management of a golf course in such an environment requires careful planning and implementation on the part of the golf course superintendent so that he and the course act as good stewards of the environment and its inhabitants. This can be accomplished by adhering to the “Best Management Practices” set out by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA).³ This might include leaving dead trees or brush to provide habitat for birds and ground dwelling animals. It must  also include the planting and use of native plants, that are “of the place” providing a good experience for all species that use it, including humans, who should also have the chance to experience and learn from such unique and important environments.

Cypress Point Golf Club Figure 5.1

Constructed in the 1920s, Cypress Point Golf Club was weaved into the existing dunes of the site.

Early Construction at Pinehurst, North Carolina Figure 5.2

In the foreground, laborers use horse drawn plows to shape a bunker near a green site at one of Pinehurst’s early golf courses.

This type of design catered to the growing American culture of sensory overload where “a thrill a minute” was the only way to entertain and keep the attention of the American golfer. No longer did the “breather hole” exist on the modern golf course. On these courses each hole often provides a greater challenge than the last. The movement of large amounts of dirt often led to problems that had never before existed on golf courses in the way of drainage. By creating mounds throughout the course, pockets of land would collect water. This coupled with a disrupted soil structure caused American courses to have poor drainage. This created a need for more elaborate drainage systems than what had previously been installed on courses of the golden age of golf design. The use of man made features such as mounds on golf course first occurred primarily in the areas most frequented by play: the landing areas and the green complexes. This left most of the property more or less flat, making for a very fragmented appearance in the landscape.

The bulldozer era has led to the creation of what is known as the “Framing School of Design” in which each golf hole, and even each golf shot provides its own scene, encapsulated into a view that lends itself to being photographed.⁵ The framing of each scene usually comes in the way of mounds built on either side of the golf hole sometimes referred to as “containment mounds.” These mounds serve a dual purpose in containment of both golf balls, and the golfer’s field of vision.

This type of design has received some criticism due to the recurrence of similar views throughout the various environments in which golf courses are built. By framing each hole with mounding, courses are severed from the naturally occurring environment that existed before the creation of the course. This means that you can often play golf courses in two vastly different regions of the country and feel as if there is little to distinguish one from the other. While this can be a critique for some, others may find comfort in familiarity of two designs when faced with being long distances from their homes. For the majority of golfers however, the excitement of experiencing the environment in which they are visiting will outweigh the desire for comfort. When visiting a tropical island dotted with palm trees and vast stretches of white sand beaches, few people would see the merit in blocking the views of these features in order to create continuity between the course they are playing, and one in the American Midwest. Each landscape of America should be celebrated and indicated by establishing a sense of place in the design of a golf course.

Enhancing the Environment through Golf Courses

Another product of the bulldozer era is architect Pete Dye. Rather than creating mounds strictly around green complexes, Dye incorporated mounding throughout entire properties, blending golf holes into these features creating a more legible contiguous environment. The movement of such large amounts of earth again required more elaborate subsurface drainage systems but the existence of such systems provided the catalyst for creation of systems to lessen environmental impacts of a golf course. During the construction of Old Marsh Golf Club in  Palm Beach, Florida, Dye faced stringent environmental restrictions due to the proximity of construction to the marshland that surrounded the property. In an effort to reclaim all the irrigation water used on the course, Dye designed all of the golf course with some slope inward towards voluminous water catchments that directed the water back to self contained ponds on site. This produced a “bathtub effect” according to Dye ensuring that any chemicals applied to the golf course as well as any other agents associated with runoff would be contained within this drainage system, allowing the soil structure of the course to act as a filter for the water as it was directed toward the drainage system. Old Marsh is a prime example of the environmental awareness that was building in the United States during the last twenty-five years of the twentieth century. Here, Dye created nearly thirty acres of new wetlands, paying  careful attention to contour these areas in terms of depth so that the same species of wildlife that inhabited the old would inhabit the new. In talking about the design of Old Marsh Dye had this  to say:

“The main objective should be to improve the aesthetics of the course by establishing, vibrant, attractive marshes that enhance the beauty of the land. With a little care, the architect can not only produce clean, clear marshes, but actually attract new species of wildlife that never existed in the area before.”⁶

This should be the effort of every golf course architect in future golf course designs, taking the extra steps associated with the careful construction and management of environments like marshes, prairies, and other ecosystems that may exist along the perimeter and within the golf course.

Water Reclamation System Figure 5.3

Golf Course Architect, Pete Dye, stands on one of the water catchments first used at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

The ability to create an environment where the existing conditions lacked certain character is the source of a new type of golf course development. Brownfield golf courses have become the newest hot commodity in golf course development in the past decade. The number  of golf courses built in landfills or areas deemed as brown fields, where development once existed and has since been abandoned has increased substantially from essentially none of this type existing in the later 1980s to 70 facilities at the end of 2002.⁷ That number is expected to grow to more than one hundred once projects currently under construction are opened. One group of courses in this category is planned for The Meadowlands in Northern New Jersey. The courses provide opportunity for golfers very close to major populations and reclaim green space that had been lost to industry or waste. The land, that would otherwise be too expensive due to  its proximity to urban centers, is often very inexpensive or even free since it is unsuitable for residential or commercial development. The downfall of such sites is the time-consuming, often expensive measures that must be taken to prevent the escape of methane and remove other contaminating materials from the site. However, there are often state or federal agencies able to provide financial help in completing this process. In some cases, the methane gas produced by decomposing contents of a landfill can act as a further source of income by capturing the gas from the site for sale to local energy companies.

Even without these sources of revenue, the golf course itself will be an economic source rather than a sink of resources while reducing environmental decay. Courses like these are providing people of nearby urban areas a more accessible source of outdoor recreation and adding to the green space of America’s cities.

Environmental Demonstration

In Scituate, Massachusetts an abandoned sand and rock quarry sat idle between the New England village and the Cape Cod Bay. This site had become an eyesore for the town, collecting trash of illegal dumping and providing little wildlife habitat. In 1993 an initiative by Golf Digest magazine, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Center for Resource Management was started to create a demonstrative golf course that would act as a source of education to study the effects of the course on the environment.⁸ In 1998 Widow’s Walk Golf Club opened to rave reviews, both architecturally and environmentally. The course continues to implement the best management practices outlined by the GCSAA and conducts studies on water quality, wildlife habitat, and other environmental factors. Just as the early courses of America used turf species that naturally occurred in the region, Widow’s Walk was planted with fine fescue grass. The particular fine fescue that was used in 1900 was sparse in density but new cultivars of fine fescue provide greater leaf density while still possessing the positive characteristics suitable to withstand the climate of the United States Northeast. The turf at Widows Walk is allowed to  turn various shades of brown and green during the hot, dry spells of the summer providing a visual flow from the course, to the natural environment and giving a strong sense of season and of place.

Today, golfers and non-golfers alike should take comfort in knowing that the use of pesticides and fertilizers is of a corrective nature, rather than of a typical maintenance practice.  In order to secure the permitting necessary to build golf courses in the late 1980s and early 1990s many golf courses were required to conduct environmental monitoring of their golf facilities and surrounding environments. These courses have produced results time after time that show no negative effects on the environment. It is interesting to note that of the area of the United States that is covered by turf, only 1-2% is attributed to golf courses.⁹ This 1-2% of land is managed by educated, state-certified pesticide applicators with a great understanding of the effect of misuse of such chemicals. The other 98-99% can be attributed to all of those working feverishly  towards that community association yard of the month award. Still golf courses will continue to receive criticisms from the 5-10% of the population that believes they are the source of pollution for the environment.¹⁰ The only way to reverse this guilty verdict is to prove golf’s innocence, and also to work towards improving the quality of the environment in which golf courses are constructed.

There have been some efforts in recent years to build what have been coined “organic golf courses” where no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides are used. While these experiments have produced mixed results, a combination of these practices, and the use of the most suitable turf have produced good results. While performing few maintenance operations and providing turf with no outside sources of nutrition is not possible throughout a course, it can be done on the majority of the turf that makes up a golf course.¹¹ If the right species of turf grasses are chosen for a given region, a surface suitable to golf can exist on the tees and in the fairways. The exception to this is on the putting green complexes, where the excessively close mowing practices require a more stringent maintenance plan. This is the situation that has surfaced on Long Island, New York at Sebonic Golf Club. The joint design effort of golf course architects Tom Doak and Jack Nicklaus has faced strict environmental guidelines in its construction and maintenance. The course will not use any fertilizers or pesticides on the fairways, tees, or other portions of the course commonly referred to as the area “through the green” in the rules of golf.

Golf holes of today’s era are being built in such a way to reflect both the natural environment in which they are built, as well as the historic landscape in which they are a part. Terraced agricultural fields might be incorporated in the design of a golf hole today, rather than being plowed under and reshaped. Other features like dikes that may have been built to protect a coastal community against high tides or were a part of a rice plantation can also be incorporated into golf holes. This has been practiced for hundreds of years in the British Isles, where courses like Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club incorporated the craters made by the bombs of World War II into bunkers on the course. Stone walls that once separated family farms are often incorporated into golf holes, providing a hazard that Americans might find somewhat unconventional.

Historical Reflection in Golf Holes Figure 5.4

Using an existing dike along the edge of a lake can give an added element of history of the site. Here, the landform implies a left-to-right shot, and the hole is designed as such.

Bulls Bay Golf Club Figures 5.5 and 5.6

Architect Mike Stranz created an interesting environment on an otherwise flat, uninteresting field (Left), while retaining the unique and beautiful qualities of the lowcountry’s salt marshes.

Late in his life, when reflecting on his design of Seminole Golf Club in North Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Ross said “In these days of steam shovels and modern improvements, it is possible to do wonderful things on flat, level country.”¹² In reaction to some critique of his style of moving large quantities of earth, Tom Fazio said, “We’ve gained the experience and confidence to know that, even without good land, we can do what it takes to meet that goal. Would Donald Ross or Alister Mackenzie be turning in their graves to hear this? No, I don’t think so, because they’d be doing the same thing.”¹³

This new era should be thought of as one of progressive reflection and architects should provide opportunity for golfers to play the game in such a manner. People should have the opportunity to take advantage of the advancements technology has provided while still testing the golfer mentally. By surveying the nuances of each hole and searching for the various ways to play a golf hole, golfers will be sure to appreciate the strategy designed in a course. By reconnecting golf holes to create a more legible contiguous environment, whether created or adapted, architects have the opportunity to enhance the experience of golfers that grace their courses. The culmination of these elements is sure to bring to life the best features of both of the previous eras in golf course architecture in America and produce golf courses that will serve as good tests of golf, as well as aesthetically pleasing environments.

Overall, the Kiawah River Plantation should provide a fair test of golf for all levels of player, and create a greater level of interest each time the course is played. The integration with the village will make the course an element of the community that will bring a sense of pride and ownership similar to that of the town of St. Andrews. The similarities of the Kiawah River Plantation and the city of Charleston might also be reminiscent of the roots of golf in America, and the golf course that once existed at Harleston Green. The natural appearance of the Kiawah River Plantation, laid out within the framework of a village might act as a reminder of what might have been, and what is still possible to achieve in golf course architecture.

The Kiawah River Plantation Golf Course and Community Figure 6.1

Figure 6.2 Long Par Four Design Through the Years

Figure 6.3 Short Par Four Design Through the Years

Figure 6.4 Par 5 Design Through the Years

Figure 6.4 Green Design Through the Years

Thomas, Frank. “To Spring or Not to Spring.” 9 February 2001.<http://franklygolf.com>. Tillinghast, A.W. Reminiscent of the Links Rockville: TreeWolf Productions, 1998 USGA Rules of Golf. Far Hills, N.J.: The Association 1908.

–  – -. Rules of Golf. Far Hills, N.J.: The Association, 1954.

–  – -. Rules of Golf. Far Hills, N.J.: The Association, 1983.

–  – -. Rules of Golf. Far Hills, N.J.: The Association, 1998.

Wethered, H.N. and Tom Simpson. The Architectural Side of Golf London, England: Longmans Green, 1929.