Downloading Onto Computer Or Otherwise Without the Prior Written Permission from Tudor Rose Holdings Ltd

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

ISSUE 0040 MONTHAPRIL 2015 YEAR

WELCOME

Firmness: the key to good golf

Recently, I saw some new research from Britain’s Sports Turf Research Institute that showed greens on UK courses were getting, on average, firmer. In this issue, we visit two projects on opposite sides of the world, Laguna Phuket and Bluejack National, where grassing choices were made, quite deliberately, with the goal of reducing the amount of water required and of keeping the greens firm. And we preview this year’s US Open, which should see some of the firmest greens in the old championship’s recent history. It seems, finally, that the golfing world is starting to practice what it has long preached about dry and firm courses.

No two cheers from me for this: my support for such trends is wholehearted. For me, increased firmness is the single most important goal that courses around the world should be pursuing. Firmness makes courses more environmentally sustainable. It makes them more economically sustainable too, in a world where water costs are forever increasing. It makes them more fun to play too, as short hitters see their drives rolling further, and everyone has to play approach shots with rollout in mind. And firmness is the one good defence against top players in today’s golfing world of 300+ yard carries and wedges with grooves so sharp one could shave with them. If the pros can hit and stick on the greens, no amount of extra length and nothing short of hazards that make courses impossible for normal golfers can make life genuinely difficult for them. Force them to control the rollout of their ball, though, and back comes genuine shotmaking and creativity, as well as getting as close as we can to the highest goal of golf architecture – a course that tests the best but remains fun for the hack. So three hearty cheers for firmness and for every course manager out there doing his best to achieve it. And an extra one for every course that joins the bandwagon.

On another note; this issue represents the end of GCA’s first decade of publishing. We couldn’t let that go without marking it, so we have polled a number of industry figures to hear their thoughts on the years that have just passed – see page 20 for details. And here’s to the next ten years.

Adam Lawrence Editor

ON THE COVER

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

The fourteenth hole at Cape Wickham Links on King Island, Australia, has been designed by Mike DeVries and photographed by Larry Lambrecht. To find out more ISSUE 0040 MONTHAPRIL 2015 YEAR about this spectacular coastal course, turn to page 11

01 “ OUR PARTNERSHIP IS 30 YEARS STRONG BECAUSE E-Z-GO IS THE BEST AT WHAT THEY DO.”

RJ HARPER Executive Vice President Golf & Retail Pebble Beach Company

REAL STORIES. REAL RESULTS.

GCA EZGO Pebble.indd 1 25/02/2015 16:46

Editor Adam Lawrence News Editor Sean Dudley

Contributors Jay Blasi, Anthony Pioppi Design Bruce Graham, Libby Sidebotham Website Development Chris Jackson Photography Steve Carr, Graeme Grant, John Johnson, L.C. Lambrecht, Scott Macpherson, USGA/John Mummert, Keith Rhebb, Drew Rogers, Martin Zilka Publisher Toby Ingleton Publication & Sales Manager Benedict Pask Subscriptions Manager Mike Geraghty Circulation Ritwik Bhattacharjee Reprints Stuart Fairbrother

Published by Tudor Rose Tudor House, 6 Friar Lane, Leicester LE1 5RA Tel: +44 116 222 9900 www.tudor-rose.co.uk

“ OUR PARTNERSHIP IS 30 YEARS STRONG BECAUSE Golf Course Architecture is published with the support and guidance of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, the European Golf Course Owners Association, the American Society of Golf Course E-Z-GO IS THE BEST Architects and the Golf Environment Organisation. AT WHAT THEY DO.”

ISSN: 1745-3585. Printed in Great Britain by Buxton Press.

© 2015 Tudor Rose Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored or transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means, RJ HARPER including whether by photocopying, scanning, downloading onto computer or otherwise without the prior written permission from Tudor Rose Holdings Ltd. Executive Vice President Views expressed in Golf Course Architecture are not necessarily those of the publishers. Golf & Retail Acceptance of advertisements does not imply official endorsement of the products or services concerned. While every care has been taken to ensure accuracy of content, no responsibility can be taken for any errors and/or omissions. Readers should take appropriate Pebble Beach Company professional advice before acting on any issue raised herein. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject advertising material and editorial contributions. The publisher assumes no liability for the return of unsolicited art, photography or manuscripts.

It is assumed that any images taken from sources which are widely distributed, such as on the Web, are in the public domain. It is recognised though that since such images tend to be passed freely between sources it is not always possible to track the original source. If copyrighted material has ended up being treated as public domain due to the original source not being identified please contact the publisher, Tudor Rose.

REAL STORIES. REAL RESULTS. PEFC Certied

This product is from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources

GCA EZGO Pebble.indd 1 25/02/2015 16:46 planning golf design projects for over 10 years SPONSORS

Andy Dye III – A passionate and original designer and artist With over 80 courses opened worldwide and an additional 40 under for only the elite and select few in the world that are truly construction, Greg Norman Golf Course Design works with clients to capable to appreciate and treasure original, unique, exceptional design and build golf course projects that meet the highest standards and rare …Design… www.andydyegolf.com of creativity, innovation, and sustainability. www.gngcd.com

planning Donald Harradine founded the family’s golfing practice in 1929. Infinite Variety Golf Design is Europe’s leading restorer of classic Harradine Golf has designed, constructed, remodelled and/or supervised era golf courses, with an emphasis on designs by Harry Colt, Tom golf the construction of over 200 golf courses in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Simpson, Hugh Alison and Frank Pennink. This expertise spills over design Middle East. Many of those courses have won numerous awards and into our new build practice where our focus lies in creating original some of them even host yearly PGA tournaments. links and heathland courses on high quality sandy sites. projects for over www.harradine-golf.com www.infinitevarietygolf.com 10 years

As turf irrigation specialists, Perrot has dedicated all activities to Pine Hill Club is a private European golf society for likeminded irrigation since 1926. It provides the most comprehensive range to members who share a passion for golf, appreciate the importance of irrigate golf courses, soccer and hockey fields, as well as race tracks. the game’s traditions, enjoy travelling and coming together for friendly Only Perrot offers the choice of pop-up sprinklers driven by gear, competition on Europe’s classic courses and hidden gems. impact lever or piston. www.perrot.de pinehillclub.com

Since 1933, developing and manufacturing innovative irrigation We aim to be the premier supplier of high-quality turf equipment, products has been Rain Bird’s sole focus. Rain Bird now maintains a environmentally conscious and delivering enhanced performance physical presence worldwide, with fully owned local companies. Rain for customers. From golf courses to the World Cup, for more than a Bird Service Team’s sole focus is irrigation and water conservation. We century, the most important turf has been manicured by our brand. call it The Intelligent Use of Water. www.rainbird.eu www.jacobsen.com

Schmidt-Curley Design is a full-service, international golf course The Toro Company is proud of its legacy of quality and innovation. architecture and master planning firm with offices in the USA and Customers around the world rely on Toro for high performing products China. Named GOLF Magazine’s Architect of the Year and Asian Golf and the company also leads the way in environmental innovations, Monthly’s Best Golf Architect three straight years. Over 150 courses in 25 making products safer, cleaner and quieter. www.toro.com countries including the world-renowned Mission Hills. www.schmidt-curley.com

05 REELMASTER® 5010-H TRUE HYBRID DRIVE Delivering Amazing Quality-of-Cut & 20% Fuel Savings*

The Reelmaster® 5010-H Fairway Mower Utilises PowerMatch™ Technology to deliver over 29.8 kW (40 hp) on demand, the hybrid drive system also provides fuel savings of 20% or more. Add to that meaningful labour and maintenance savings, along with an amazing quality-of-cut, and you’ll quickly understand why the new Reelmaster 5010-H fairway mower is a true “game-changer” for you, your budget and your golfers.

*average savings compared to conventional 5010 series fairway mowers

Follow the Leader @ToroGolf

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NEW 5010-H FAIRWAY MOWER AT TORO5010.COM

RM5010HAd_SnglPg_GolfCourseArc.indd 1 3/9/15 4:18 PM ® CONTENTS

We tee off this issue with news and images 11 of the Cape Wickham Links course on King Island, which lies between Tasmania and the Australian mainland. Architect Mike DeVries REELMASTER has designed a routing that makes the most of the meandering coastline. We also hear the latest from the Graeme Grant-design Ocean Dunes course on the island’s west coast. Our Tee Box section continues with an interview with the principals of Dellanzo Group, news of a new Palmer course at Castle Stuart in Scotland, and much more.

It has been ten short years since the launch 20 of Golf Course Architecture magazine. To 5010-H celebrate, our main feature for this anniversary issue takes a look back at some of the architectural highlights of our first decade. 28 Golf architect Rees Jones tells GCA that golf is TRUE HYBRID DRIVE “not as badly off as people say,” and remains what it has always been: “a great avenue for Delivering Amazing Quality-of-Cut & people to interact”. Anthony Pioppi considers the legacy of Seth 30 Raynor, architect of an astounding portfolio 20% Fuel Savings* of golf designs including many of America’s leading private clubs.

Jay Blasi explains why Chambers Bay, host 36 to this year’s US Open, is different from any The Reelmaster® 5010-H Fairway Mower previous course to hold the championship. Utilises PowerMatch™ Technology to deliver Adam Lawrence visits Assoufid in Morocco, ON SITE Assoufid 38 the site of former touring pro Niall orocco – especially the historic number of new golf developments have course was finished and playable, albeit city of Marrakech – has been sprung up in recent years – is basically flat. obviously very young, but none of the something of a boom market The Assoufid property, though, is rather supporting infrastructure had been started. over 29.8 kW (40 hp) on demand, the hybrid drive for golf development in the different – looking across from the course Now, the course has its clubhouse, practice Cameran’s debut golf design. Mlast five years or so. There has been golf in to the surrounding land shows what the site facilities and so on, though the hotel Morocco for many years – a result of the must have looked like before construction. It and housing that will be the core of the royal family’s commitment to the game – but is pleasantly undulating, though not so steep development is only just getting under way. One hit recently, tourist investment has accelerated, as to be a tough walk, and has an abundance The course begins in relatively gentle fashion, with the country’s year-round reliable of natural feature, most obviously a dry but really hits its stride at the fifth hole, a weather and easy access from key European river bed, or ‘shaaba’ in the local language, good par four with an intimidating blind tee locations making it ‘the next big thing’. which comes into play several times on the shot over a ridge. The front side returns to the Cameron, formerly head professional back nine of Cameron’s design. It is, I think, clubhouse at the ninth, an excellent par three system also provides fuel savings of 20% or at clubs such as Turnberry and Royal St clearly the most interesting piece of land that from a slightly elevated tee, featuring a green George’s, has been based in Sicily for the last has been made available for development in banked into a left to right sideslope. Somewhat At Bluejack National in Houston, Tiger Woods’ wonder? few years, working as director of golf at the the Marrakech area, and Cameron’s course unusually, Cameron has bunkered the high Kyle Phillips-designed Verdura resort. makes good use of it. side of the green; missing left will leave either a 42 Though its position in full view of the Assoufid’s birth has been a protracted tricky downhill bunker shot, or alternatively a Former touring pro Niall Cameron’s design debut at majestic Atlas mountains is a central part process. The course itself was built several very delicate pitch over the bunkers to a green of Marrakech’s appeal, the area immediately years ago – this writer first visited the sloping away. Missing on the right is probably firm is creating a pretty remarkable course for Assoufid is a strong performance, says Adam Lawrence around the city – where a substantial property some three years back, when the a wiser course of action! more. Add to that meaningful labour and developer Beacon Land. maintenance savings, along with an amazing 46 Thailand’s popular Laguna Phuket course has quality-of-cut, and you’ll quickly understand undergone a major makeover at the hands of golf architect Paul Jansen. why the new Reelmaster 5010-H fairway Filmmaker Cob Carlson’s latest work is a poem mower is a true “game-changer” for you, 48 of praise to Pinehurst architect Donald Ross. The par three seventeenth at Assoufid is framed by the Atlas mountains your budget and your golfers. Carr Steve Photo:

38 Golf Course Architecture 39

ON SITE *average savings compared to conventional 5010 series fairway mowers Tiger’s homage to Augusta On an atypical undulating piece of land north of Houston, Tiger Woods’ design firm is creating a pretty remarkable Follow the Leader course for developer Beacon Land. Adam Lawrence paid a visit ouston is flat. I have visited the late Texas oil baron Thomas Blake. Blake the golf course, which in places uses the hole capital of Texas’ oil industry on sev- commissioned the Coore & Crenshaw firm corridors left by Blaketree National, but in eral occasions, and until now I have to design his course, but fell out with the other areas is completely new. never seen anything that would architects during the build, and completed Bluejack feels remote – to get there, Hlead me to doubt that statement. So, when the project on his own. one drives north from Houston through I heard that developers Michael Abbott and dormitory communities, small towns and Casey Paulson had teamed up to form a new countryside – but in fact it is close to hotbeds company, Beacon Land, that their first project “ The opportunity is of development. It is close to the large (and was to be just north of Houston, and that they growing) community of the Woodlands, and had hired Tiger Woods’ design firm to create here to create a golf oil giant Exxon has announced plans to move the course for them, I was a little sceptical. its global HQ to a new site north of the city, @ That part of Texas, after all, is not famous course unlike any and happily nearby. Two new highways are ToroGolf for great golf. The climate is tough to say being built that will make access to the course the least, and most of the surrounding areas other in the Houston easy, and the Exxon project will create 13,000 have heavy soil and very little in the way of jobs only a few miles away. It is an enviable interesting ground contours. The Woods firm, area, and our goal is location for a new development. announced with great fanfare several years Both developers and architects are keen ago, had become caught up in the effects of for it to be among the to retain that sense of remoteness. The 400 the global economic slowdown; its debut homesites planned will encircle the golf project in Dubai had disintegrated amid best in the nation” course, around the outside of the 755 acre huge amounts of wasted money and its first site, but in only a small number of spots American project, at the Cliffs communities in will housing be visible from the course. North Carolina was going nowhere after the Blake died in 2001, and some years later the Discovery Land, Abbott’s former company, bankruptcy of the developer. golf course went bust. Abbott, formerly with was famous for off-the-chart levels of Then I had the opportunity to visit. top-end development firm Discovery Land, service at its developments, and the same Much that I saw on my visit to Bluejack heard about the property, and, after visiting, sort of environment is planned for Bluejack. National, about an hour north of Houston resolved to purchase it and create a new golf “Bluejack National has one of the best city surprised me, but in truth nothing club and residential offering. He invited Coore natural settings for golf I have seen,” Woods shocked me so much as the site itself, a & Crenshaw back to the property, but his ideas has said. “With its changes in elevation, the piece of beautiful, largely sandy ground did not match with those of the designers and, beautiful pines and hardwoods, Bluejack with tremendous natural undulation. The via architect Beau Welling, made contact with National is reminiscent of the pinelands of property was previously the location of the the Woods firm. Now, Woods, Welling and the Georgia and the Carolinas. The opportunity Blaketree National course, developed by the rest of their team are hard at work creating is here to create a golf course unlike any The fourth hole on the Bay course at Navarino Dunes runs along the coast

42 Golf Course Architecture 43 LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NEW 5010-H FAIRWAY MOWER AT TORO5010.COM 07

RM5010HAd_SnglPg_GolfCourseArc.indd 1 3/9/15 4:18 PM 5 COURSES. 81 TOTAL HOLES. 365 DAYS A YEAR.

ONE BRAND OF TURF EQUIPMENT To keep its 81 holes of world-class golf in awless shape every day, Pebble Beach uses only Jacobsen turf equipment on every inch of every hole.

For more than 90 years, Pebble Beach has been a national treasure. Its ve breathtaking courses contain some of the most iconic golf images known to the game. Six major championships helped create an indelible image of majestic beauty and striking contrasts.

For more information about Jacobsen or to nd a Jacobsen dealer near you, visit jacobsen.com.

FOR A LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE ON YOUR COURSE, CALL 01473 270000

www.ransomesjacobsen.com

GCA/PB/03/2015

GCA Pebble Beach 210x280mm.indd 1 25/02/2015 16:49 MAIL BOX A break from convention

Dear Editor Agustsson, the FEGGA Chairman, said: director of golf course management, who also At the recent FEGGA Conference in Portugal, “We were delighted with Edwin Roald’s attended the Algarve event. Isaac’s statement I was pleased to get so much support from eye-opening contribution to our conference, reads: “Golf is a wonderful sport enjoyed by delegates for my campaign in favour of which was the subject of lively debate millions around the world, providing healthy returning to one of golf’s long-standing but among our delegates. Using his broad range recreation in relaxing, natural surroundings. lost traditions – accepting the idea that golf of knowledge, from golf history to modern It does, however, have to compete for people’s courses may have different hole counts than golf course development and management, time with other sports and leisure activities the conventional nine and eighteen. Edwin has proposed a unique view on how and greater flexibility in the number of 5 COURSES. Golf was played for centuries on courses we should determine the number of holes holes being played may help more people of different lengths, including seven, ten, on a golf course, and how greater flexibility to participate regularly in golf. Such an thirteen, 22 and 25 holes, before a move to in this regard can benefit our game and approach to the design of golf courses could the standard eighteen took place in the late industry for the short and long term. address other issues such as the availability of 81 TOTAL HOLES. 1800s, perhaps unintentionally. This has left Granted that golfers themselves embrace land and the cost of their construction and us with a rigid format that golfers believe to this new approach, Edwin Roald’s ideas can maintenance. Edwin Roald makes a strong be a cornerstone of the game, while it in fact help reduce maintenance cost and resource case for such flexibility and his views are has only been around for less than a quarter use, while making golf more attractive to certainly thought provoking and worthy of of golf‘s history. Today, this is limiting more people. Furthermore, golf facilities serious consideration.” 365 DAYS A YEAR. golf‘s ability to respond to the customer‘s will be better equipped to work hand-in- available leisure time, and to the added hand with the environment as well as other Edwin Roald resource-use and cost involved in building stakeholders in our communities.” Edwin Roald Golf Course Design, Iceland and operating golf courses. The Why18holes.com, website, originally The conference delegates included created in 2008, has now been given a facelift. We are delighted to receive letters from readers, leaders of European national greenkeeper The new and upgraded site provides in-depth and the best in each issue will be rewarded with associations and other decision makers in information on the benefits of reconsidering a GCA golf shirt. Send letters by post to European golf, many of which expressed golf’s 18-hole principle, along with words 6 Friar Lane, Leicester, LE1 5RA, UK, or e-mail their support of my views. Olafur Thor of support from Steve Isaac, The R&A’s us at: [email protected]

GOPHER WATCH

Our clue to Sandy’s whereabouts in the last Gopher Watch was perhaps a little generous, as certainly lots of readers seemed well able to identify Royal Birkdale’s home hole, even without the famous clubhouse in view. The winner was, remarkably, a golfer even better travelled than Sandy himself. Bob McCoy, from his website and his regular ONE BRAND updates, appears to spend most of his life visiting exciting golf courses around the OF TURF EQUIPMENT world, and there is hardly a significant To keep its 81 holes of world-class golf in awless shape every day, Pebble Beach uses only venue he hasn’t played. So we’re pleased Jacobsen turf equipment on every inch of every hole. to think that a GCA shirt will be travelling the world with Bob in future. For more than 90 years, Pebble Beach has been a national treasure. Its ve breathtaking courses After a run of links, Sandy finds contain some of the most iconic golf images known to the game. Six major championships himself on a rather different type of helped create an indelible image of majestic beauty and striking contrasts. course this month. No clues, beyond saying that the place has hosted a large For more information about Jacobsen or to nd a Jacobsen dealer near you, visit jacobsen.com. number of Major championships, and was, arguably, among the last works of . golf design’s Golden Age. Answers to: [email protected]

FOR A LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE ON YOUR COURSE, CALL 01473 270000 www.ransomesjacobsen.com

GCA/PB/03/2015

GCA Pebble Beach 210x280mm.indd 1 25/02/2015 16:49

TEE BOX

TeeboxDeVries main brings headline a new can belinks centered to Tasmania if required

he new Cape Wickham Links boasts eight holes that lie adjacent to the “The meeting of land and sea on the site course on King Island, which ocean, plus two more with green sites was like nothing I had ever seen before,” lies between Tasmania and the pressed against the shoreline. DeVries told GCA. “Most coastlines are fairly Australian mainland, has been A series of preview groups have played the consistent in their form – sandy beach, cliff Tunveiled to the public. course, which is located at the northern tip or rocky coast for example. But the golf Designed by architect Mike DeVries in of the island and surrounds the iconic Cape course site at Cape Wickham has an idyllic partnership with Darius Oliver, the course Wickham lighthouse. sandy beach in Victoria Cove, rocky > Photo: L.C. Lambrecht L.C. Photo:

The par-four sixteenth hole at Cape Wickham Links, one of eight that play directly alongside the coastline

11 Tee Box

The 186 yard par-three seventeenth “It was the most amazing piece of property I have ever seen for a golf course”

> headland in Cape Farewell, and a meandering coastline that interacts with the water from so many different elevations and orientations of the compass that it is really unique. And once you leave the coast, you have huge dunes and ridges, lower profile undulating terrain, and protected valleys and bowls between these landforms.” DeVries believes the most important aspect of a golf course is to have it flow naturally from one hole to the next, and says the transitions between the varied environments of the Cape Wickham site have been done seamlessly, without forcing one to overpower another. The course has an unusual routing that sees the first 13 holes set to the west and south of the clubhouse, with the finishing five holes to the north and east. “The routing is constantly changing direction and experiencing the water and views in different ways,” he said. “By letting the land unfold and the golfer explore and experience its changes simply, we were able to give each feature and hole a sense of place elevated portions of the property and golf very different and golfers will find that the within the context of the golf course. course rhythm and flow,” he explained. “But course will not play the same way, no matter “The huge dunes that are east of the what a cool problem to have! It was the most how many rounds they play there.” fifteenth hole and south of the clubhouse area amazing piece of property I have ever seen The course is set to close over the Australian gave spectacular views and a massive scale for a golf course. The conditions can be quite winter as final preparations are made, before but posed issues with connectivity to lesser variable and that will make multiple plays opening officially in October 2015. Ocean Dunes to open in 2015

Cape Wickham Links is not the only expected to be finished and open for play Grant and his team have had to overcome new course in progress on King Island; by the end of October 2015. some irregular weather conditions to get construction is also under way on the “The front nine holes and the eighteenth the course to its current stage, not least the Graeme Grant-designed Ocean Dunes have been completed, and we will have a 2013 winter, the wettest King Island has course on the island’s west coast. series of small groups playing the front seen in 80 years, followed by a period from Ten holes have already been completed nine for the first time around Easter,” August to December 2014 where there was at Ocean Dunes, and the entire course is Grant explained. no rainfall at all.

12 Golf Course Architecture The second and (inset) tenth holes at Cape Wickham Links Photos: L.C. Lambrecht L.C. Photos: Photos: Graeme Grant Graeme Photos:

“We have had to build the course as fast putting surfaces when I looked after for golfers to enjoy,” explained Grant. “We inexpensively as possible, so staff levels are Kingston Heath in Melbourne, so I plan hope that the course is good enough to not high,” Grant said. “I decided to move to to have Ocean Dunes very firm, but not so attract golfers from all corners of the earth the island to have the opportunity to work fast that the wind has an undue impact on and not only those from Tasmania. If we with the property in a hands-on way.” the roll of the ball.” are successful along with Cape Wickham, Grant says that Ocean Dunes differs from Grant is confident the Ocean Dunes then the small economy on King Island will Cape Wickham Links due to its terrain, course will provide a significant boost to receive a much-needed boost. What we are larger greens, and the use of bentgrass rather tourism in the region. being told is that golfers are likely to travel than fine fescue. “In my opinion, both courses on King to the four Tasmanian courses – the Dunes “I prefer to putt on bentgrass so it’s nice Island have very special sites, and if I do and Lost Farm at Barnbougle, Ocean to have the right to choose!” Grant added. my work well and capitalise on the site, Dunes and Cape Wickham Links – as a “I gained a reputation for preparing hard, Ocean Dunes will have a world-class course complete golfing trip.”

13 - GOLF MAGAZINE(2011)

- ASIAN GOLF (2011-2014)

Members, American Society of Golf Course Architects Tee Box

THE INTERVIEW Dellanzo Group The redesign of Ghala Golf Club in Muscat, Oman is being handled by Dellanzo Design, a UK-based company and Dellanzo Group, an international asset management company specialising in development, management, marketing and golf business advisory services. Sean Dudley spoke to its principals – Emilio Dellanzo, group director, Paul Dellanzo, chairman, and lead architect Dr Beatrice Franceschi PhD – to find out more about the firm and its activities

How is your business approaching the golf design market? Emilio Dellanzo: We take a totally different approach to Dellanzo and Franceschi are working design. While aesthetics to convert the sand-based course at and playability are Ghala Golf Club in Oman into a extremely important, ‘semi-desert, Arizona-style’ layout our 360-degree service is unique because we can enter a true partnership with a developer, club or resort. We start with a business plan based on the long-term budget – not just for the course, but the total operations, including factors such as hotel, clubhouse and the development of master plans. We can design the kitchen, the clubhouse, the residential element at the site – everything. We spend more As a professional management company time in the field than most other we cover project management, facility companies and offer a very personalised management, membership planning service taking whatever time necessary to and marketing. We also provide systems, ensure a great job gets done on time and strategy, staff and conceptual selling in budget. More than anything course methods and staff training to help make a design has to be a business decision – not project successful. an emotive one. We are about to announce a revolutionary new design developed by Can you tell me more about the Dellanzo Dr Franceschi to shorten the time played Group’s current projects? on a full course and ways to attract various Paul Dellanzo: We currently have three design market segments to the game. agreements in Croatia, Italy and Oman, I want us to be at the leading edge of with several more in the pipeline. I have new ways of doing things to promote this been fortunate to work with some of the great game. best-known design names and professional players over the last thirty years. The game Tell me more about your project at has changed immeasurably though in recent Ghala in Oman years. In Croatia, the developer – Ritossa Olive Beatrice Franceschi: Oman is a beautiful Oil and Family Land Development – selected country where people are very kind and us based on the broad range of services we hospitable. The course will be a semi- provide – not just design services – and our desert, Arizona-style course. That may seem success in international market penetration strange to say but courses in the region and our ability to add value and revenue seem to blanket themselves in grass and streams to a club or resorts bottom line. use way too much water. At Ghala Golf My main issue over the years is seeing Club, we are taking what was previously little design work done in the field and too a sand course and developing one that much on desktops – you cannot develop is aesthetically beautiful and not overly all the design playing nuances that way. difficult, but still challenging from the back From project to project, I don’t see enough tees. We are carefully considering the needs attention to costs, too many unnecessary of ladies, children and higher handicappers. overspends and long term maintenance cost We’ll also be transitioning some fairways issues. It is difficult to get a good ROI when directly into ‘sandscapes’, with thousands too much is spent upfront. We can usually of new plants and taking out the Kuwaiti Paul Dellanzo: Besides being outstanding with save a developer seven figures off the top Trees that can damage irrigation. We’ll be all the detailed technical design drawings, of project costs. Also developers need to planting more than 600 palm trees and Beatrice is a brilliant artist. When discussing consider that it is not just the design cost but installing a new irrigation system. This design in the field she just draws it as we the cost of building the project and ongoing is all happening in a beautiful valley and agree on solutions and, hey presto, the image costs that can be the real issue. mountain setting. is there on paper.

15 Tee Box Palmer team takes stake in Castle Stuart

Castle Stuart owner Mark Parsinen has announced the Arnold Palmer group has become a partner in the Scottish Highlands resort, and its design team will work in collaboration with him on the resort’s second course, which is planned to start construction early next year. Parsinen said that the two groups had been in discussion for over a year, and that work on the new course’s routing was already well advanced. Palmer architects Thad Layton and Brandon Johnson will both work on the project, alongside Parsinen, Castle Stuart general manager Stuart McColm and course manager Chris Haspell. Construction will be handled in house. “We were over there for two weeks recently with Mark and his team, and on that visit we jointly came up with a routing plan,” Layton told GCA. “The site is to the south west of the existing course, and the routing is would be tweaked, and that the course would wisdom that a big name design firm just draws essentially out and back. There will be a new be built very much in the field by agreement plans and then leaves it at that. Working with dormie house near the start of the course, between all concerned. Mark is invigorating – he is a very intelligent which will play around the old castle.” “For us, the chance to design in the field is a person with lots of ideas. It’s really a team Brandon Johnson added that, although a great opportunity,” he said. “It will be a lot of approach – Mark is client, partner and friend, routing had been agreed, he anticipated it fun, but it’s also a chance to buck the received and we’re all in this together.”

FROM THE ARCHIVE The Old White course at The Greenbrier Resort

“Where it says ‘Casino’ (below), that’s was a known height, I could transfer around the clubhouse. There’s an awning on that the golf course, and look at all the bunkers building, between the clubhouse and the and tell how deep they were. I studied aerial tennis courts, that is still there at the same photography and military photographs when elevation today. Once we had the photograph, I was in the army for many years, and so I felt we looked at the shadow of the trees that like I had a pretty good understanding of two are still there, such as ones around the 18th dimensional light and depth, and shadow and green. We could tell roughly what time of form. I applied what I already knew and got day the photograph was taken. By measuring lucky and found this one shadow that was the shadow on the awning, which I knew consistent from the 1920s to today.” Lester George, ASGCA, completed a five- year restoration of The Old White course at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, between 2001 and 2006. Originally designed by CB Macdonald and Seth Raynor and opened in 1914, the course has held the Greenbrier Classic on the PGA Tour since 2010. The Old White was drastically changed over the years, but after sitting down with the club’s historian and director of golf, George used a series of aerial photographs and applied an innovative technique to identify and analyse the Old White’s original layout. The project took five years to complete, but the intensity of the work is why it has been regarded as one of the strictest restorations of a Raynor/McDonald course in the US. Here, George describes some features of the work:

16 Golf Course Architecture Harradine resumes work on Living Legends course

Harradine Golf has been re-hired to supervise the construction of a nine-hole golf course in Dubailand, UAE. The firm drew up the original plans for the course back in 2006, but plans were put on hold due to the global financial crisis. “I believe that nine-hole golf courses are the future of golf,” said Harradine. “Many golfers can’t spare the time to play 18 holes which take four to five hours. We don’t need longer courses, what we need is more interesting courses and this Living Legends will follow that pattern.” The Living Legends course will form part of a Tanmiyat Global real estate development and will also be home to a driving range and practice facilities. “We have no doubt that with Peter Harradine and his team on board, Living Legends Golf Course will become one of Dubai’s most popular golfing destinations,” said Mohammed Bin Odah, CEO of Tanmiyat Global. “Harradine has a unique vision and has created a refreshing alternative to Dubai’s 18-hole courses, that will attract not just residents, but golfers throughout the region and tourists alike.”

“On the third hole (below) you can see the Biarritz and the horseshoe-shaped bunker around it. For resort play, as the bunker goes all the way round, a forced carry on a 220-yard hole is pretty tough. So we took some artistic license and put in Biarritz bunkering like we’d seen it at other courses, which is left and right, front and back. These are the kind of decisions we had to make.”

“The 18th green (above) has the horseshoe contour in it, which Raynor and McDonald always put in their Short hole. So when I built the 18th green back as it was, I built a remnant of it as I didn’t have the room to go all the way to the creek anymore. It’s a brow and it’s in “At the top of the photo (above) is the the middle of the green, and the first year they twelfth hole, and to the right of the ‘s’ of held the Greenbrier Classic there people were ‘Yds’ is a bunker, with the sand and the brow saying ‘What the hell is this? It’s three feet high!’ visible. I restored that bunker as part of my We reintroduced it to keep it fun for the resort work there. Further down the fairway there’s golfer, but when the tour came they asked a section that looks like tall grass, or a blip if whether to keep it, and I said ‘only if you want you will on the left hand side. That’s where to be accurate!’ Now it’s one of the most talked the hell bunker would have been. Between about holes on the PGA Tour.” there and the green there’s a creek, and you can see where the fairway comes down to a This is an extract from an article point. We restored the creek and put sand that appeared in the spring 2015 back into the hell bunker. These are the kind issue of By Design, which is of things we were able to pick up thanks to available as a free download at the photograph.” www.asgca.org/by-design

17 The Golf Irrigation Specialist

Rain Bird is the Official Turf Irrigation Supplier for Pebble Beach Resorts®.

You are investing, Rain Bird Europe commits:

- High quality products, best in class services and lowest Total Cost of Ownership. - Unique solutions for consumption management and water resources optimization. RAIN BIRD EUROPE SNC - The sole player in water management from pump station to rotors. 900 rue Ampère - B.P. 72000 13792 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 3 - Perpetuate and increase the value of your assets. FRANCE - Develop your golf course’s attraction. [email protected] - Train your field employees. www.rainbird.eu

www.rainbird.eu Tee Box

The Golf Irrigation Specialist COURSE BLUEPRINT Arm End With a new golf course and public recreational facility to be built on Tasmania’s Arm End peninsula, the first plans for the site have been revealed. Golf architect Jay Morrish died on Architect firm Crafter + Mogford has 2 March 2015, aged 78. Morrish worked been hired to design the course, with with Jack Nicklaus before setting up his construction set to begin later this year. own firm in 1982, with Tom Weiskopf. During this period he worked on the design of a number of high profile courses, including Loch Lomond Spectacular cliffs characterise the course’s in Scotland and TPC Scottsdale in northern nine holes, with architect Neil Arizona. Morrish served as President of Crafter saying these holes have a ‘direct the American Society of Golf Course relationship with the water’ Architects in 2002-03. Download the latest issue of By Design via www.asgca.org/ A ‘Himalayas’ putting course will be by-design to read some of the many tributes built near the main clubhouse site from Jay’s friends in the golf industry.

Huxley Golf has introduced three teaching bays to upgrade the practice facilities at St Andrews. The new bays A permanent clubhouse is form part of the club’s Golf Academy likely to be built at a site and will enable players to practice with views overlooking driving, iron play, pitching and putting. Mary Ann Bay The EcoBunker construction method is being used to help improve A temporary kiosk, cafe and bunkering at Southerndown Golf Club pro shop will be built at the near Bridgend, in the UK. With the southern end of the site to introduction of a series of synthetic accommodate visitors when surfaces, EcoBunker is helping improve A practice fairway is the course first opens the quality and sustainability of the set to be built near the course’s bunkers. 50 of the course’s 84 southern end bunkers have already been upgraded and the project is on course to be completed by winter 2016. For more Rain Bird is the Official Turf Irrigation Supplier for Pebble Beach Resorts®. Water will be visible information and a video on the work, from every hole of the visit www.golfcoursearchitecture.net and southern nine search for ‘Ecobunker’ You are investing, Rain Bird Europe commits:

- High quality products, best in class services and lowest Total Cost of Ownership. Rolling Green prepares for Women’s Amateur

- Unique solutions for consumption management and water resources optimization. RAIN BIRD EUROPE SNC A series of improvements is being made to “The size of their greens – or rather how 900 rue Ampère - B.P. 72000 the William Flynn-designed course at Rolling much they had shrunk – and the speed - The sole player in water management from pump station to rotors. Green Golf Club in Springfield, Pennsylvania, at which they are maintained was really 13792 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 3 - Perpetuate and increase the value of your assets. as the club prepares to host the 2016 USGA beginning to limit potential hole locations,” FRANCE Women’s Amateur Championship. said Nagle. “After we finished our bunker - Develop your golf course’s attraction. [email protected] “We’ve had a ten-year relationship with project in 2007, golf historian Jim Finnegan Rolling Green Golf Club,” explained said that Rolling Green was at its ‘historic while another group came in and began - Train your field employees. www.rainbird.eu architect Jim Nagle of Forse Design. “In best’. Nine years later, the club wants to coring out the soils in the area of the the past we’ve rebuilt all their bunkers, make sure the course is again at its historic green that would be expanded. Somebody introduced new tees, and worked on a lot best for members and on television during would also be modifying the irrigation, of tree management issues. In July 2014 we the tournament.” and another group would come in and put received a phone call saying the club was Work began in September 2014, with the in new mix. Another crew came into rake looking into the possibility of reworking or project focusing on one green at a time. things off, and another crew began to returf. expanding all of its greens.” Some internal modifications were made to The project, managed by superintendent The club also needed to address some a number of greens that involved softening Charlie Carr, was implemented with drainage problems it was encountering to gain more hole locations. former green chairman Anthony Rosati on the greens. After years of top dressing, “It was a very intensive project, in that it and completed by current green chairman ‘dams’ had built up across the front of was like an assembly line process,” explained Dave Staebler, with course improvement many greens, which led to water ponding. Nagle. “One group was stripping the turf, continuing this spring. www.rainbird.eu 19 FEATURE

July 2005 GCA Cover final 6/27/05 2:58 PM Page 1 uy20 £4.95 July 2005 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION

Shaping the home of golf Architecture at St Andrews How the courses have been adapted to the power game David Kidd on the development of Course No. 7 The Old Course’s inﬂuence on worldwide golf course design decade

The pioneer The short par four First class Bruce Critchley and Martin Strategy, heroism, but Nick Faldo on why Hawtree on the enduring mostly fun: what makes opening holes shouldn’t genius of Harry Colt for a minature classic be a gentle introduction Page 22 Page 38 Page 52 OCTOBER 2005 GCA Cover 9/30/05 4:14 PM Page 1 A OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF coe 05 £4.95 October 2005 J www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net GOLF COURSE £4.95 anuary 2006 ARCHITECTURE

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION of THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION design This fortieth issue of Golf Course Architecture sees Greens of envy Pay and play

OCTOBER 2005 The link between green design and maintenance Course construction costs: is expensive golf better golf? How modern day green speeds have inﬂuenced contour severity Martin Ebert explains how to keep the price down us celebrating ten years of reporting on golf design. Flattering, rather than ﬂattening, the landscape Tom Doak on the value of design 2 ND 365 Y

ARDS Adam Lawrence reflects on the past decade Dr Alister MacKenzie Natural selection Location, location... The pioneer Golf de Dunkerque The player Mark Rowlinson Brown is the new green Kyle Phillips discusses Why Charles Blair A golf course built to Davis Love III on his top investigates the legacy of as naturalist approaches course location and Macdonald is the father resemble a seventeenth designs and what the Augusta’s creator to golf design take hold development potential of American golf century fortress pros really ﬁnd tough Page 22 Page 30 Page 52 Page 20 Page 48 Page 19

April 2006 GCA Cover 4/4/06 4:26 pm Page 1 July 2006 GCA Cover 7/7/06 11:15 am Page 1 October 2006 GCA Cover 12/10/06 12:02 pm Page 1 GCA_Cover 8 & spine:GCA_Cover 29/3/07 12:40 Page 1 OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF April 2006 July 2006 October 2006 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net pi 07 £4.95 April 2007 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net aur 07 £4.95 January 2007 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE £4.95 £4.95 £4.95

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF GOLF COURSE DESIGN AND MODIFICATION

Golf’s new world Ebb and ﬂow What’s in a name? Honing Hoylake Back to the future Where will the game grow? Pace of play: how architecture makes a difference The role of design How Pebble Beach went slower to get quicker

Are signature designers good for the game? How Royal Liverpool GC has geared up for The Open What’s the difference between restoration and renovation? What sort of courses will succeed? 2007 APRIL Flow: the heart of a golf design Why branding helps sell golf developments Design changes: has the quirk gone? Should golf courses be protected landscapes? Marketing sizzle or expensive luxury? Conditioning: a return to fast and ﬁrm How to revamp an old classic 8 TH 2 YARDS 123

The pioneer Askernish The player The pioneer Saint-Germain Peter Harradine The Pioneer Linna Golf Jeff Mingay The pioneer La Zagaleta The player The Pioneer Turnberry The Player Jeff Mingay profiles We follow Old Tom’s Mark O’Meara shares The godfather of Bringing a classic Three generations of Bernhard von Limburger, the Will championship golf Collaboration between Scotland’s five times Open Building a golf course Fame More on why Philip Mackenzie Ross: the Toughening up the Christy O’Connor Jr Canada’s best-known footsteps in the Outer his thoughts on design golf architecture, Colt layout into the architecture at Bad most important figure in the soon be coming to this like-minded people Champion and master on the side of a Spanish technology isn’t all bad, last flowering of golf’s Ailsa course for the says that links golf is architect, Stanley Thompson Hebrides of Scotland characteristics Old Tom Morris twenty-first century Ragaz in Switzerland history of German golf Finnish forest? makes for better courses designer James Braid mountain for women at least Golden Age? 2009 Open real golf Page 25 Page 24 Page 56 Page 23 Page 26 Page 54 Page 32 Page 24 Page 54 Page 30 Page 28 Page 56 Page 27 Page 26 Page 58

GCA_Cover 9 & spine:GCA_Cover 29/6/07 09:55 Page 1 GCA_Cover 10 & spine:GCA_Cover 15/10/07 10:31 Page 1 GCA_Cover 12 & spine:GCA_Cover 27/3/08 08:18 Page 1 GCA_13 without spine:GCA_Cover 25/6/08 14:15 Page 1 OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF OFCUS ARCHITECTURE COURSE GOLF coe 07 £4.95 October 2007 uy20 £4.95 July 2007 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net pi 08 £4.95 April 2008 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net aur 08 £4.95 January 2008 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net uy20 £4.95 July 2008 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE

Black magic A world-class volcanic links in Iceland? Faldo and Smyers: the Chart Hills team rides again Inspired designs Stabilising the dunes: the key to the Black Sand build Template holes: a sign of missing creativity? Are replica golf courses a good bet? How many Redans can the golf world bear? Dye on design Light and shade COE 2007 OCTOBER AUR 2008 JANUARY Bear landscape The architect of Whistling Straits, Kiawah Island and TPC Sawgrass spills the Designer of Les Bordes and one of golf architecture’s most colourful PI 2008 APRIL UY2007 JULY beans about his life, his golf courses and his love for messing with pros’ minds characters: Robert von Hagge talks about creating beautiful courses From playing legend to golf’s most successful designer: Jack Nicklaus tells GCA the story of his twin careers 10 9 11 12 TH TH TH TH 454 311 443 155 YARDS YARDS YARDS YARDS The Pioneer The Greenbrier The Player The Pioneer Renaissance Club The Player The Pioneer Cobble Beach Pete Dye The Pioneer Sugarloaf Mountain Robert von Hagge The Pioneer Pasatiempo Jack Nicklaus Archie Simpson: the Lester George restores Tony Jacklin on his Debunking the myths America’s hottest Eduardo Romero: ‘El Tom Simpson: golf Carrick builds a Golf’s greatest living Eccentric but inspired: A mountain in Florida? From Doral to Les Eddie Hackett, the MacKenzie’s last Golf’s greatest ﬁgure creator of Royal Aberdeen Macdonald’s work in plans to move into about Donald Ross, the design team builds in Gato’ slays a few architecture’s best-kept picturesque links architect speaks Forrest Richardson on Coore and Crenshaw’s Bordes: the story of an godfather of Irish golf home, restored by his tells us about his and Murcar West Virginia course design father of Pinehurst the home of golf sacred cows secret? alongside Lake Huron exclusively to GCA Desmond Muirhead latest masterpiece amazing career design greatest disciple approach to design Page 24 Page 52 Page 23 Page 26 Page 60 Page 25 Page 26 Page 56 Page 34 Page 22 Page 52 Page 32 Page 26 Page 54 Page 36

GCA_14 without spine:GCA_Cover 3/10/08 12:02 Page 1 GCA 15_Cover:GCA_Cover 6/1/09 16:13 Page 1 GCA_Cover issue 16:GCA_Cover 17/4/09 12:01 Page 1 October 2009 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net pi 09 £4.95 April 2009 coe 08 £4.95 October 2008 £4.95 January 2009 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE GOLF COURSE

ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE £4.95

Lord of the links Mike Keiser introduced thousands of Americans Better by design to links golf. Now, he’s working on projects in Australia, Canada, Scotland and China With tough times on the horizon, how can golf architects help courses improve their business prospects? Northern lights Golf’s ﬁrst globetrotter For thirty years, the story of golf in Sweden has been about youth development. Now the country is How Ron Fream and his Golfplan colleagues helped the building courses to match its playing talent game grow into a worldwide phenomenon

The Pioneer Riffa Views Liberty National Was Willie Park Jr really A Scottish links in Spectacular views of The Pioneer Blind par threes Amendoeira The Pioneer Ron Fream Wolf Point Club The Pioneer Golf in Italy Wisley the founder of modern the middle of the Manhattan, but how Javier Arana: Spain’s ﬁrst Crazy hangover, or fun Faldo brings Arizona Robert Trent Jones: golf’s Taking golf to the farthest The Old Course SV Hotchkin: golf’s Finally emerging from Major renovation for golf architecture? Bahrain desert? about the golf? and best golf architect connection to golf’s past? style to the Algarve greatest moderniser corners of the world remade in Texas? military mind the shadows? elite English club Page 28 Page 60 Page 72 Page 28 Page 50 Page 68 Page 22 Page 38 Page 60 Page 28 Page 44 Page 69

20 Golf Course Architecture THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

January 2010, Issue 19, £4.95 April 2010, Issue 20, £4.95 July 2010, Issue 21, £4.95 October 2010, Issue 22, £4.95 January 2011, Issue 23, £4.95 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Lost Farm at Barnbougle Dunes: Coore and Crenshaw’s new masterpiece in Tasmania Wentworth: the West course gets a striking new makeover from Ernie Els Design Golf development in China: Mission Hills builds another mega-resort, but is the game’s growth built on sand? Celtic Manor: The complicated design history of the Twenty Ten course Cabot Links: Rod Whitman’s latest design takes shape on Cape Breton Island in Canada Plus: Menie Links, controversy reigns; AV Macan, pioneer of the Pacific Northwest; Synthetic turf, any good for golf? Plus: Ellis Maples, King of the Carolinas; Bandon Dunes, ushering in Old Macdonald; China and India, stark contrasts. Plus: An audience with the King, Palmer speaks; The Scandinavian, Denmark’s newest gem; Geoffrey Cornish. Plus: Seth Raynor, the accidental architect; Aberdeenshire, Scotland’s new golf hotspot; The origins of the Biarritz Plus: Hugh Alison, the sadistic sidekick; Clubhouse design, formulas for success; Thailand, rapid golf growth

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

April 2011, Issue 24, £4.95 July 2011, Issue 25, £4.95 October 2011, Issue 26, £4.95 January 2012, Issue 27, £4.95 April 2012, Issue 28, £4.95 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

The Anti-Augusta Syndrome: why the restoration of Pinehurst No. 2 is the most important project in golf Where are we going? Architects from around the world discuss the state of the golf industry Course renovation Hints and tips to help you spend your money wisely Doing more with less: how clever design cuts maintenance costs without hitting golfers’ enjoyment Mountain lions: Architects are being asked to build golf courses on increasingly tough sites. How is it done? Plus: MacKenzie in Australia, eleven weeks that changed golf; Irrigation, water security; Netherlands, still growing Plus: Augusta’s bunkers, could most go? The LA school of design, California’s finest; Palmares, resort reinvented Plus: Mira Vista, The hunt for Hunter; Dismal River, A sight of Doak’s new course; John Morrison, Colt’s cub Plus: Harry Colt, golf’s greatest designer; Sitwell Park, MacKenzie’s lost green; Castiglion del Bosco, Tuscan treasure Plus: Rethinking the resort, no longer flat and dull; Shadow Dunes, changing China; Lost Hole, uncovering Colt

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT the global journal of golf design and development the global journal of golf design and development THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT the global journal of golf design and development

January 2013, issue 31, £4.95 April 2013, Issue 32, £4.95 July 2013, issue 33, £4.95 July 2012, Issue 29, £4.95 October 2012, Issue 30, £4.95 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Emerging golf markets: new countries embrace the game Streamsong Resort: the world’s greatest piece of corporate social responsibility? Architects’ Choice Top 100 Golf Courses: we reveal the results of our global poll of golf designers

Plus: Plus: Plus: Golfers demand firm and fast, says Dana Garmany, Troon boss explains Texel, creating a dutch dunescape; leading us club boss; Warm season how he went global; Guacalito de la Isla, Nefyn & District, swan builds a new links, which grasses to use; Traditional Kidd rediscovers his sense of fun; green on the point; Royal Porthcawl, Growing pains: Finding the best way to fund golf developments Trump International, is it really the best course in the world? greenkeeping, species transition; Food Roving superintendent, Jason Chennault controlling water more accurately; and beverage, can it make money? reports from Mongolia; Mountain Flying in Peru, agustin pizá designs Plus: Herbert Fowler, gilded aristocrat; Open bunkers, why always revet?; Mazagan, Player firm’s finest course? Plus: Cabot Cliffs, Cypress Point-like par three; Volkswagen GolfArena, global relevance; Masterplanning, the future how today’s courses learn from the past r&a chief defends old Course changes Family business, the story of thai golf The three ages of Asian golf Malaysian developer banks on golf retreat, Kirby builds in Dolomites broadstone: restoring Colt’s wild creation stephen bernhard: at the sharp end a home for new golfers

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

October 2013, Issue 34, £4.95 January 2014, Issue 35, £4.95 April 2014, Issue 36, £4.95 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Golf’s biggest dunes: nine new holes at Carne contribute to local regeneration Municipal golf: what does the future hold? Long par threes: an endangered species making a comeback?

Plus: Plus: Plus: Continental drift, is Asian golf The International, Steensels’ Amsterdam David Tucker, England’s forgotten slowing down? Waving, not drowning, design; Digital green scanning, at architect; Tree management, why do Royal Dublin’s perfect links rough; Philadelphia Cricket Club; The Swinkels, clubs resist?; Augusta’s short course, Welcoming news, how to make on converting farmland to a golf course MacKenzie’s routing discovered; Royal clubhouses work; Blunt instrument, designed by Frank Pont; Punchbowl, Troon, becoming more spectacular; Kasumigaseki to host 2020 Olympic golf The life and work of Mike Strantz why par doesn’t define difficulty The tale of Tasmania’s Greg Ramsay Davison’s great debut at Penati Doak’s new putting course at Bandon Jerry Sarvadi: an American in Scotland Ekerum: Swedish resort with big potential Shaping, the battle for control GOLF GOLF GOLF

COURSE

COURSE COURSE

ARCHITECTURE

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT THE GLOBAL JOURNAL OF GOLF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

ISSUE 0040 MONTHAPRIL 2015 YEAR 38 37 ISSUE 37 JULY 2014 ISSUE 38 OCTOBER 2014 39 ISSUE 39 JANUARY 2015 July 2014, Issue 37, £4.95 www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

21 Ten years

Jonathan Davison made a successful new course design debut with the Heritage at Penati Golf Resort in Slovakia Photo: © Martin Zilka, photomartini.com © Martin Zilka, Photo:

en years. It feels like a long time, in but I very much doubt it has expanded Penati resort in Slovakia, has been much that I can hardly remember when I in any of the years since, with closures acclaimed, and he is now working on a was not editing this magazine, yet outpacing openings. Many golf architects, number of new course projects, with one in it also seems only a very short time faced with the challenge of finding work the ground and others in planning. “Big jobs agoT that we produced the first issue of this in an environment like this, have left the are great, but they are stressful,” he says. “You magazine. We had, as seemed appropriate, industry – some estimates say that the are never sure when they are actually going the Old course at St Andrews on the cover, number of architects actively practising to start. I have three projects ready to go, but and we were dipping our toes into an may have declined by a third. The large each has taken over three years to get to this entirely new market. firms have shrunk, with the lesser-known point. I have six new builds under contract A decade on, that market feels like home. associates forced either to go their own and two more in talks, but who knows if and Trying to make a living in the golf design way or join the list of those who have when they will all get going?” industry is far from easy, as any golf found alternative ways to earn their keep. American architect Drew Rogers is one architect will testify, and trying to make a And the architects that remain have had to of those who has had to find his own path living reporting the golf design industry is, acclimatise to a business that, rather than during the last decade. Back in 2005, he was perhaps, even harder. But if it isn’t lucrative, focused on new course builds, is mostly a lead associate for Arthur Hills’ firm, but the it is endlessly entertaining and challenging; about renovation work to existing courses. recession and the shrinkage of that firm forced in a quarter of a century as a journalist, Or, alternatively, to get the chance to build him off on his own, a move he did not seek, reporting on any number of different new courses, architects have been compelled but which he now believes was for the best. industries and subjects, I can honestly say to target new, more remote locations, such “In 2005, I was managing between six and that I have never met such a great bunch of as eastern Europe, South America or sub- ten new builds and several large renovations,” people as inhabit the golf business. Saharan Africa. he says. “I was building new opportunities in The golf course architecture business English architect Jonathan Davison was Iberia, doing lots of routing plans, banking of 2015 is radically different to that of just beginning his career in 2005, in the lots of frequent flyer miles. Life was good. Our 2005. I vividly remember being at a Golf design office of Jeff Howes in Ireland. After firm had somewhere in the neighbourhood of Industry Show press conference in about a spell with Howes, he moved to eastern a dozen designers and we were fresh off one of 2008 at which a National Golf Foundation Europe to work with Jeremy Ford, building our best years – to the extent that we were able spokesman presented its most recent survey courses in the Czech Republic and Poland, to take the whole team on a trip to Scotland. of the US industry and concluded that golf before moving to the Slovakian capital of Those were crazy times. Our first born was supply had shrunk in the country for the Bratislava to start up his own operation. His two years old, and my wife was essentially first time in over fifty years. I am not sure, debut course, the Heritage eighteen at the raising him on her own.”

22 Golf Course Architecture Photos: Drew Rogers Rogers Drew Photos:

Drew Rogers has overseen a successful restoration of Old Elm in Chicago, originally a collaboration between Harry Colt and Donald Ross

Rogers left Hills during the downturn For Baril, losing his mentor, Robert von move ahead with its second course in the and has created his own firm, working on Hagge, is naturally the strongest memory of near future. We built great relationships with projects such as the restoration of the Harry the last decade. “Obviously when someone clients that still exist today. We would plan Colt/Donald Ross collaboration at Old Elm is that age, we expected and planned for it,” a two week trip and just show up places, in Chicago. “There were many highlights of he says. “Intellectually you know it’s going somehow it all worked. You can’t work like that life,” he goes on. “Producing some damn to happen, but emotionally it was soul that nowadays. I remember Robert saying good courses for very capable clients, and destroying. He was a 30 year mentor and to me: ‘In this business the money comes working all around the world. But ultimately, and goes but the relationships last a lifetime’. the biggest highlight has been going it alone That’s a great message and one I have always and finding complete happiness. I give my tried to remember.” clients a better service than I did, and it is “There is an explosion Others may be doing similar things, but have better for my growth as a professional and seen the market change around them. Belgian- for my family. I don’t miss anything from of growth in the based American architect Andy Dye says: that rat race phase. None of that appeals “Ten years ago, I was travelling around Asia, now. I’m not resentful or regretful for having developing world – designing and building golf courses. Pretty gone through those first 18 years with a much the same as now. I’ve been very lucky!” bigger firm – it helped shape what I am golf has gone global – But even so, Dye has seen the business today. Some have said to me ‘You should change rapidly. “There is an explosion of have done this sooner and, while that might even more than it was growth in the developing world – golf has be true, I think the path I took ultimately gone global – even more than it was ten made me better, and I certainly built my ten years ago” years ago. And it is Asia that has led the way. network through all the bumpy times. I There, you have a middle class emerging don’t regret hanging in there as long as I did that didn’t exist ten years ago, when we were – the timing proved perfect.” also like a father. He was frustrated in those building courses for the elite. Golf course Some are still in the same place, but even last years, because he couldn’t do what he owners and developers in Asia are much for them life has changed. Rick Baril, along had always done. Even when he was able to more knowledgable now than they were with his colleague Mike Smelek, is still travel, the trips were difficult, because he ten years ago. They travel to Europe and running the firm of von Hagge, Smelek wasn’t in control any more. But we were able the US, they get new ideas and they adapt and Baril, but the firm is now minus its to work on some amazing projects. Take them to their needs. And Asian golfers have founding father, who died in 2010 aged 83. Les Bordes in France, which we hope will matured – they have a greater understanding

23 Ten years Photos: Scott Macpherson Scott Photos:

Greg Turner and Scott Macpherson’s renovation of the Oreti Sands Links at Southland Golf Club in New Zealand has received high praise

Similarly, Kiwi architect Scott Macpherson what became our first major design project, was newly solo in 2005. “I started my Sand Hollow in Hurricane, Utah.” company in 2004, so in 2005 we were a Staples says the industry must become year old and in the early stages of planning more flexible. “The future for the golf for the Close House project in north- design business will be to focus on ways east England,” he says. “That has been an to be diversified, nimble and open to new amazing experience over the whole decade partnership opportunities,” he says. “Golf – working with a very committed owner, will continue to look for ways to bring new and respect for the game and its history. and gone through a range of things, up to players to the game as well as capitalise on Environmental golf will be a big story in now, hosting an important seniors event. ways to get more out of the current group Asia in the next few years.” I’ve been able to work on some wonderful of players. A high priority will be placed on Young architects have found it hard to projects in New Zealand, including the facilities that are viewed as amenities in their become established in recent years, but some renovations of Oreti Sands, the world’s communities, and deliver health oriented have done so. Dutch designer Frank Pont, southernmost links and Royal Wellington. benefits. Golf may never be the strongest who came to golf as a second career after What makes me happiest is the great friends of business models, but courses and their years in the consulting and banking sector, I’ve made along the way. The industry has operation can and will be viewed as a greater says that 2005 was a milestone year for him. been brutal, and I’m incredibly proud of benefit. Much like cities see values in libraries “That was really the first year I made enough being able to keep going. I’m also very or parks, golf courses will show value from a money to live on,” he says. “Looking back proud of the two books I’ve written, on the health, air quality, exercise and family values.” through my invoices for that year, I see I was history of the Old Course at St Andrews, “I’m still in the same place,” says working on a lot of courses, but basically and on the clubs honoured by the British Pinehurst-based architect Richard Mandell. just in the Netherlands – at Toxandria, De Royal Family. The funny thing is, I never set “In my mind at least – I’m still sitting here, Pan, Ullerberg, Amsterdam Old Course and out to write a book – both emerged from hoping I get a specific project, still fighting De Hoge Kleij. I was building the Land van my sense of curiosity and turned into much the fight, but the fight isn’t as daunting as it Thorn course, my first nine hole new build, bigger projects.” was a decade ago. After more than a decade and doing routings for De Turfvaert, which Arizona-based designer Andy Staples and a half of hand to mouth, I finally started would be my first eighteen holer. Over the says: “In 2005, my company was three years making some noise in the business in 2005. last decade, my business has expanded, and old and we were focusing our work on Since then, business has been great on the my reputation has widened, so I have been management and master planning. We were renovation side, but few opportunities for able to work at places like Royal Hague, also dealing with the death of a partner, who new projects, mostly because I was in so Cruden Bay, Swinley Forest, Broadstone, Le was killed in a small plane crash viewing deep on specific projects that I did not have Touquet and Hardelot. And I’m very proud the possible site of a new project. We were a chance to really pursue new projects, even of the new course I built at De Swinkelsche. currently working throughout the state of if they were out there to pursue. For the future, my goals are to get strong Utah, including a maintenance contract “But that said, the past seven or eight years positions in the important European with Thanksgiving Point outside Salt Lake have been the best of my career and the markets, work with talented local partners, City. The company’s focus was on reduction busiest. We were fortunate enough to get build a course in a heathland or duneland of maintenance costs, energy and water some work in China, which was fun, but we environment, and get my first restoration efficiency and overall savings. And it was in also got to work on some great restorations, projects in North America or Japan.” 2005 that we were introduced to the client at renovations, and redesigns. We are as busy

24 Golf Course Architecture EE-3938 EEDesign GCA Advertising Campaign 2014_AW.indd 1 10/12/2014 08:43 Ten years Photo: Keith Rhebb Keith Photo: today as we have ever been and are finally getting recognition on a national scale. Our renovation of the Keller course in Minnesota won Golf magazine’s renovation of the year for municipal projects and the South Carolina Ratings Panel just voted two of my projects as the most improved courses in their respective regions (of four regions) since 2005. “I also started researching my Pinehurst book back in 2004, but I don’t think that has had much impact on my design career. It is a nice gift to give to clients and I have made money on it. It may or may not have opened doors. It is hard to tell. When I point out the details pertaining to Donald Ross that I have proven on the book, it has helped along those lines with legitimacy.” For non-designers too, the decade has been eventful. Kai Hulkkonen, now working with David Nelson in contracting firm Nelson & Vecchio, says that it was in 2005 that he first entered the golf business. “I Mummert USGA/John Photo: had been working for the Danish industrial While the number of new openings in the past decade has been relatively low, the quality has been high – cases in point giant Danfoss, but I quit in February 2005 include Lost Farm (top) in Tasmania and Chambers Bay in the United States to start work on the Sand Valley course in Poland,” he says. “It was my dream to The experience of John Holmes of Atlas other growth markets. While the work is no build a golf course. My arts project in high Turf shows another way the industry has longer close to home or concentrated in one school was a model of a golf course. The changed since 2005. “Ten years ago I was busy region, the variety of golf projects and locales reason I was working for Danfoss was that developing our international shipping process keep the work exciting. And the golf boom they had bought my father’s company. for exporting turfgrass,” he says. “We were in China allowed us to place our paspalum It made sense to build in Poland, as we very active in the Caribbean with multiple products in very different climatic locations.” knew we could do it cheaply – and we had projects. The work was never more than a few It has, then, been a decade of contrasts across access to land that others didn’t as we had hours flight from home. In 2009 that market the business. Some have prospered, many done business there before. From the very all but dried up, prompting us to pursue have struggled. More courses have closed than beginning, I intended to be very involved in work in places we could hardly find on a map. have opened, but given the standard of many the process. Lassi Pekka Tilander and I did Besides boosting my knowledge of worldwide of the new openings – places like Chambers the routing together, as well as some of the geography, the situation prompted us to fine- Bay, which will host this year’s US Open, like hole concepts. And then, after the contractor tune and perfect the process of efficiently Machrihanish Dunes in Scotland or Lost Farm went bust, I brought in Tony Ristola to finish exporting live turfgrass to remote locations. in Australia, it’s difficult to argue that the the project. I’m still very proud of what we We were able to enjoy the glory days of golf average standard of course hasn’t got better. achieved there.” construction in China and are now looking at Which has got to be good news. GCA

26 Golf Course Architecture Howes

AN A2LA ACCREDITED LABORATORY as recognised by the usga

Having demonstrated ongoing competence in testing materials specified in the USGA’s recommendations for putting green construction

• 17 years expertise in the testing of proposed construction materials and the custom designing of rootzone mixes for golf and sports fields • Full range of physical tests available for soils, sands, gravels, amendments and rootzones used in the construction and drainage of golf courses and sports fields • ETL actively participates in the Golf Club Adamstal USGA greens section proficiency testing program • Prompt, accurate and reliable results guaranteed

“Our mission is to European Turfgrass Laboratories Ltd provide the turfgrass Unit 58, Stirling Enterprise Park, Stirling, FK7 7RP, Scotland, UK industry with the most A unique blend of experience, expertise and imagination complete physical testing Tel: +44 (0)1786 449195 facility for all materials used Fax: +44 (0)1786 449688 e-mail: [email protected] www.jeffhowesgolfdesign.com in the construction process” Web-site: www.etl-ltd.com

Practice makes....perfect

There will be many who argue that there’s no such thing as the perfect golf course but Carnoustie - which we’ve been supplying for over 15 years - has to come close to being just that. We have 30 years in turf, served by two generations of the same family sharing the same passion for perfection. When you’re thinking turf for your next project you should think about thinking INTURF - and then get in touch.

www.inturf.com INTERVIEW Rees Jones Golf architect Rees Jones tells GCA that the industry is picking up, but competitive pressure is stronger than ever

s global economies continue their multiple architects capable of winning and recovery from the Great Recession, leading design projects – have typically the golf business is also picking shrunk in both number and size. Jones’s up in various parts of the world firm, though, remains a diversified –A but it is scattered, and many parts are still portfolio operation, with associates Greg finding times tough, according to veteran Muirhead, Bryce Swanson and Steve golf architect Rees Jones. But, he adds, Weisser all having been with the company the industry is not being helped by media for many years. But the principal accepts reports of golf’s struggles. life is harder now. “One thing that I think “Golf is not as badly off as people say,” everyone in the industry will attest to is Jones says. “Unfortunately, a fair amount of that fees have gone down in recent years,” the mainstream media has fixated on the he asserts. “Because the business has been people to interact – and its appeal is strong ‘golf is dying’ message and that’s all they ever quiet by historical standards, even though a all over the world. In developing countries, print about the game. I think those of us in number of architects have left the industry, golf is hugely attractive for developers and the industry would be a lot better off if we there is more competition for jobs, and the newly affluent alike, because golf estate stopped believing non-golf publications and that has an inevitable impact on fees. The projects provide leisure, security and better media outlets. They’re talking to bankers, not shrinkage of some of the big firms has housing opportunities to people who really golfers, and the view they are forming, and made this even more intense, as there are a want them. But there is definitely a trend in propagating about the game is based on the bunch of guys who previously worked for developing markets to go for designers that fact that a bunch of developments that were one of the big names who are now solo, are already established. Often, to make your never really economically sustainable have and the result is you get more and more name you just need one great opportunity, gone bust. That’s a fact, and it’s too bad, but people bidding on a job.” a good client with a good site in a good it is a long way from being the whole truth Jones, who made his name back in the location. There’s no doubt those can be hard about the golf industry.” 1970s after he left his father’s operation to to find these days, but in all honesty they As is well known, the economic go off on his own, is conscious that getting were never easy. I really believe that people challenges of the last seven years or so established in today’s market is very difficult who have talent and determination will find have had big impacts on the golf design for young designers. He does, though, believe the openings they need.” business. Many less successful architects that the golf development market will One thing that the downturn has done is have been forced to leave the business continue to grow – provided architects are change the attitudes of those on the client altogether and find a new way of making prepared to travel around the world to where side, developers and existing clubs alike, says a living, while some older designers have the work may be. “We are never going to Jones. They are now much more focused on essentially gone into semi-retirement, have that great boom of the 1990s again in seeing where the return on any investment in servicing the needs of past clients and the US, but I am convinced that the market facilities will come from, and that is forcing doing new work if and when it appears. will continue to grow,” he says. “Golf remains golf architects to justify projects much more In particular, the larger firms – those with what it has always been – a great avenue for in financial terms than in the past. But there

28 Golf Course Architecture are different ways to get a return. “I have one best way to invest their money and get the client, who, after some work on his course, “Golf remains what most from that investment. “We have a new has substantially increased his green fees and job in the Catskill mountains of New York,” is seeing increased revenue as a result,” he it has always been says Jones. “Adelaar is a casino project and explains. “But it is true that we have to be a huge leisure development, with indoor much more focused on getting clients where – a great avenue and outdoor waterparks. I also think we’re they want to go now. You can lead them, but going to see lots of activity in the Bahamas. you can’t shoot off on a flight of fancy. When for people to Mexico is starting to pop a little more – we we propose improvements to a golf course have a new project in Loreto (Danzante to a client, and the client says ‘Well, where is interact – and its Bay Golf Course at Villa Del Palmar), a the return on my investment going to come timeshare proposition right on the ocean from?’, often it is difficult to come up with a appeal is strong all with a great hotel. And the Japanese golf clear enough answer. Golf has always been business is surprisingly busy right now, as a business for people who like to dream, over the world” lots of clubs are looking to upgrade their and you still have to buy into those dreams facilities, in particular taking advantage and be a part of helping to make them of improved grasses to abandon the old come true, but even the dreamers are more place, but they are much more likely to two green system that they have used for pragmatic now than they were in the past. succeed in the end.” so long. At the Ibaraki club, which we Even the dreamers are focused on the hotel Jones has always worked around the world, renovated quite recently, they have hardly or the environment for people to live and and he says that business is currently coming had a free starting time since we redid the enjoy their pastimes, in a way that perhaps from many different locations. In the US west course, and they’re making a lot of they weren’t back in the 1990s. But that has and other golf markets the firm is working money. The Japanese really love their golf. to be a good thing really – it means projects with a variety of golf clubs, from daily fee I played over there very recently. It was cold might be harder to get going in the first to private, and helping them determine the and windy, but the place was full!” GCA

29 PIONEER

From engineer to artist Architect to many of America’s leading elite private clubs, Seth Raynor left almost nothing for golf historians – other than his astounding portfolio of

course designs. Anthony Pioppi considers his legacy Lambrecht L.C. Photo:

n 1907 Charles Blair Macdonald hired golf while attending St Andrews University. Work in Connection with roads, sewers, Seth Raynor to assist with the con- One of America’s best golfers, he was a drainage, water works, etc. He then became struction of the audacious National bombastic tyrant who, as the story goes, interested in Golf Course Designing and Golf Links of America, Macdonald’s wrote his nephew out of his will after he Building of Golf Courses.” Ieffort to build the best golf course in the won a bet against him by driving the first It is a monumental understatement to United States. No one, not even the two men green at National. say that Raynor ‘became interested’ in golf themselves, could have predicted the conse- The reserved Raynor was Macdonald’s course architecture. It would have been more quences of this seemingly innocuous hire. complete opposite. The writer who accurate to write that beginning with his Macdonald the mentor and Raynor, the 19 conducted the only known interview with work at the National, golf design came to years younger student would go on to have Raynor described him as “a man so reserved dominate the rest of his life. As partner to profound effect on golf architecture in the that like a person with a passion for shut- Macdonald, he oversaw the construction of United States, their influence felt to this day in life he seemed deliberately concealing some of America’s greatest courses before – more than a hundred years after they met. the best part of himself lest I might get going out on his own to craft layouts that Raynor, a civil engineer, was well-known something out of him.” rivalled his mentor’s work. What makes his and popular in the town of Southampton, Raynor knew nothing of golf when he came success all the more amazing is that Raynor NY, on the southern fork of eastern Long to work for Macdonald. Born and raised in did not pick up a golf club until he was in Island near the National. He came from an Southampton, he was a street commissioner his early forties and had worked on at least upper middle class family, earned a degree in and served on the draft board during the four Macdonald designs before doing so. His engineering from Princeton University and First World War. He married a local woman, creations, such as the Golf Course at Yale, knew nothing of golf. Mary Hallock, in 1903 when he was 28. Fishers Island Club and Camargo are some of Macdonald, a successful New York They had no children. His biography from a the most acclaimed in the US. stockbroker, was moneyed and hobnobbed Princeton publication commemorating the Raynor’s design career lasted only 19 years; with some of the most powerful American 25th anniversary of his class reads: “For a he died of pneumonia in 1926 at the age of families. From Chicago, he fell in love with number of years he engaged in Engineering 51, succumbing in a West Palm Beach hotel

30 Golf Course Architecture Many consider Fishers Island Club in New York, where all 18 holes have views of Long Island Sound, to be Raynor’s finest work

with his wife at his side. He was in Florida corner to the front left, became a Reverse at least have a modicum of golfing talent and for the opening of one of his layouts: the Redan that tilts from back left to front right play the game regularly. Macdonald wrote: majority of his work can be found up and on courses such as Raynor’s Dedham Country “He scarcely knew a golf ball from a tennis down the Atlantic seaboard, though his and Polo Club in Massachusetts. ball when we first met, and although he never portfolio extends to California, Hawaii and When no template fit a location, Macdonald became much of an expert at playing golf, yet Puerto Rico. He built in Tennessee, Illinois, and Raynor did not hesitate in coming up the facility with which he absorbed the feeling and Missouri, visiting each site at least once, with their own designs. In Macdonald’s which animates old and enthusiastic golfers to which meant a hectic travel schedule in the book, Scotland’s Gift – Golf, he quotes a 1910 the manner born was truly amazing, eventually days when the mode of long-distance travel Metropolitan Magazine article written by qualifying him to discriminate between a really was by train and steamship. Horace Hutchinson: “…several of the best fine hole and an indifferent one.” As is well known, at National, Macdonald and most victorious holes on the other side The phrase, “he absorbed the feeling which conceived the idea of creating America’s first are here seen reproduced with a faithfulness animates old and enthusiastic golfers,” is world-class golf course with holes based on which is a testimony to the scientific care, the key. He was as much an artist as he was an the best found on the links of the British labour, the money which have been lavished engineer and knew designing golf holes was Isles (and in one case France). Many of the on it…but the larger number, and possibly not akin to laying out roads. The angles on hole designs at National made up the core of the best in character, have been planned out his Redan greens in relationship to the tee templates for all his future golf courses and of the designer’s brain with such suggestions may be extremely similar from course to the courses of Raynor, as well. as his experience, gathered in Europe, and the course but the pitch and the undulations of These were not mere copies slapped down at natural trend of the ground he had to deal the putting surfaces are not. each site, but rather variations on the originals with, supplied to it.” In an article on Raynor in the March where the strategy was adapted to the land. Raynor’s grasp of Macdonald’s ideas is 1918 edition of The Olympian, the house For instance, the Redan par three at National remarkable, given that he had never played golf magazine of the Olympic Club in San (based on the original at North Berwick), with or worked on a golf course; he is possibly the Francisco, the author, Theodore F. Bonnet, its green that tilts from the back right hand only heralded American golf designer to not describes Raynor discussing his plans for

31 SOL GOLF A5 Ad 12/19/11 3:30 PM Page 1 Photos: L.C. Lambrecht L.C. Photos: Photo courtesy of Trump Golf Scotland, taken by Brian Morgan

CREATORS OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST GOLF COURSES The Biarritz ninth hole at Yale; the eighth at Mountain Lake, with the short ninth Courses which have hosted the Ryder Cup, Walker Cup, Curtis Cup and the Open Championship are just some of the many prestigious courses visible in the background; and the closing hole at Yeaman’s Hall which SOL GOLF can count amongst our portfolio.

SOL GOLF have recently completed the prestigious Trump International Golf Links course in Scotland. the Lake Side course: “The holes he sees precisely as a musician sees Above is a view of the stunning Par 3 13th Hole. the notes as they are written in the sheet of music though there is no sheet before him.” It is Raynor’s only known interview and the only CALL +353 64 775 1006 EMAIL [email protected] insight into the man other than Macdonald’s words in Scotland’s Gift. Macdonald essentially gave up golf architecture in 1917, according to his book, occasionally venturing back for a handful of projects, some WWW.SOLGOLFCONST.COM his own and some Raynor’s, on which he acted as consultant. These included the long gone nine hole Ocean Links that bordered Newport (Rhode Island) Country Club and the Golf Course at Yale. One Long Island newspaper story from 1922 reported that Macdonald and Raynor teamed with Devereux Emmet on the design of the Women’s National Golf and Tennis Club, which no longer exists. There is no official tally of how many courses Raynor laid out or worked on. Macdonald has about 17, while in The Olympian, Raynor said he had built 60 courses. At that point, he still had eight more +44 (0)20 8251 5100 [email protected] www.e-s-p.com years of work ahead of him, including all his most acclaimed work. Even 60 is an amazing number considering Raynor’s first solo work came in 1914 and he was dead by January of 1926. The total does Transforming Golf & Leisure Club Management not include projects on which his designs were rejected or not built. Ironically, at the Olympic Club, he submitted a complete renovation Delivering quality service and a wide range of facilities and drawing for the Lake Side course, but another designer was chosen. experiences is core to your club success. ESP technology innovation The list of known Raynor courses seemingly grows yearly. In 2014, and flexibility ensures your club can deliver and adapt… cost it was discovered that he drew up the nine hole plan for the Taft effectively. School in northwestern Connecticut, though he was not present for construction. He visited Taft while working on the Yale course and Bookings • Online & Mobile • CRM building a nine-hole layout for the Hotchkiss School, a Taft rival. Integrated Online Members Services Only a couple of greens remain from the Taft design, located on a Access Control • Point of Sale • Stock Control practice range of Watertown Country Club. Competitions & Handicapping Management A typical Raynor design is Wanumetonomy Country Club in Rhode Island, barely touched in nearly a hundred years. Wanumetonomy Business Intelligence • Reporting came about while Raynor was building the nearby Ocean Links for the extremely wealthy T. Suffern Tailer. At the same time Raynor was contracted to design 18 holes for Wanumetonomy, a more blue- collar clientele with a smaller budget. The design is not Raynor’s best but by no means is it a course to be skipped. It has a handful of wonderful holes including an Eden par three with a massive green and an outrageous Maiden green at the end of a par four. Interestingly, there is neither a Redan nor Biarritz par three the only Raynor course that lacks both. Along with sticking to the templates and Macdonald’s lessons, another reason Raynor never produced a dud is that he excelled at routing a golf course. Whether it was on a flat piece of ground like ESP is the preferred technology and services at Country Club of Charleston or on a site with a sharply rising partner, driving the highest standard in sports and leisure management

GCA_quaterpage_93x128.indd 1 13/03/2015 16:36 Seth Raynor Photos: L.C. Lambrecht L.C. Photos:

ridge on one end of the property such as are mountaineering instead of golfing. (OK, The lines of Raynor’s bunkers are clean Somerset Country Club in Minnesota, he except for maybe the up and over route on and simple but not geometric. There are made 18 fine holes. 18th hole, but that’s a story for another day.) only a few known examples of ragged edge With little elevation on such layouts Architect Brian Silva has renovated and bunkers, and no instances of bunkers with as Charleston or Southampton Country restored a number of Raynor layouts the capes and bays that are the earmarks Club, he weaves through the property, with including Fox Chapel, Mountain Lake, of an Alister MacKenzie course. “He wasn’t consecutive holes rarely playing in the exact Lookout Mountain, Southampton and overly-possessed with the look,” Silva says. same direction. There are doglegs and straight Charleston. He says both Raynor and After playing a Raynor course, besides corridors, but never a feeling of redundancy. Macdonald made sure “to get the skeleton and the bunkers, you will also converse about In Scotland’s Gift, Macdonald explained route plan correct.” By skeleton, Silva mean the massive greens that switch between how to get the best out of such a property. the bones of the golf course, tees, greens and audacious and subtle. The more adept Of Ocean Links he wrote it “was built upon bunkers, all combining to form the strategy. golfer will also discuss shot options and flat pastureland but by building up the Silva surmises that Raynor thought least about the multiple routes provided for each greens and bunkering them after classical the skin, the aesthetics of the course, the hole, exactly what Macdonald and Raynor models the course is most interesting.” opposite of many modern architects. Walk off thought most important. Conversely, on sites with significant elevation any Raynor layout and you’ll not find yourself Raynor grasped Macdonald’s genius: he was changes, such as Lookout Mountain and talking about the look of the bunkers, but famously quoted as saying he wished he had the original Somerset routing golfers never how far below the greens the bunker floors ‘the ears of a donkey or an ass’ so he could find themselves fighting the contours as they were, sometimes close to 30 feet, and where hear everything Macdonald said. travel the course. Even at Yale, considered by they were placed to affect shots. While the “To my mind every aspirant who wishes many his best design, Raynor takes golfers floor of a Raynor bunker might be well below to excel in golf architecture should learn by up and down a number of inclines on the the green, the bunkers themselves are easy to heart and endeavour to absorb the spirit of testing site but one never has the feeling of walk in and out of and maintain. the following lines, copied from ‘The Art of

33 Photos: John Johnson John Photos:

A 1938 aerial photograph of Fox Chapel in Pittsburgh has helped inform architect Brian Silva’s renovation work

that strikes one more than another, it is the constant strain to which the player is subjected; he is perpetually on the rack, always having to play for the flag itself, never able to say to himself that ‘anywhere over the bunker will do’,” he wrote. This is not to say that Raynor only created difficult holes; he did not. The majority of Landscape Architecture,’ written by the great and much earth when building a course. They his greens are open in front, allowing for the Humphry Repton in 1797,” wrote Macdonald. moved dirt to build tees and greens, but in bump-and-run. When they aren’t open, the “‘I can only plead that true taste in every art, general should be considered minimalists. carry to the putting surface is often manageable consists more of adapting tried expedients to Yes, much of Lido and parts of Fishers for most classes of golfer. The par thee Short peculiar circumstances than in the inordinate Island were built with tons of sand pumped normally has an elevated green surrounded thirst after novelty, the characteristic of in from the nearby ocean floor, but that is by sand, but it usually plays about 140 yards uncultivated minds, which from the facility of not how they usually worked. The majority from the original tee. The putting surface is inventing wild theories, without experience, are of the fairways at Fishers, or Charleston or commonly more than 8,000 square feet. apt to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, Camargo or Midland Hills remain much the So what is Raynor’s greatest design? None genius by innovation, and that ever change same as when Raynor first saw the sites. Like are in their original state. There are those who must necessarily tend to improvement.’” his contemporaries, Raynor used the land he immediately answer “Fishers Island” because Raynor never tried to reinvent the wheel on found, adding bunkers where appropriate of its stunning beauty. Many holes come right his own work. He knew – no matter what any or massaging small sections of ground to to the sea’s edge, all 18 have views of Long modern architects espouse – that there are no create landing areas. As Silva points out, on a Island Sound. Others point to Yale, the boldest new golf holes. When he did venture away from 140-acre golf course, Raynor typically moved of Raynor’s designs. templates, Raynor created holes that called for about four acres of earth. Maybe Raynor would have thought thought on the part of the golfer and rewarded An often overlooked quality of the otherwise: we’ll probably never know. What the well-played effort while fairly punishing the Macdonald/Raynor design philosophy is that is known, however, is that by following miscue. Frequently the fine effort required for a they never dumb downed their work for sound design theories, adhering to concepts good score came in the form of a testing green. high handicappers. They always incorporated that worked, and focusing more on how When faced with a unique site that lent itself alternate routes, and in some cases constructed his courses played than how they looked, to his own designs, Raynor took full advantage. forward tees to eliminate long forced carries, Seth Raynor created a legacy that 100 years For instance, at Shoreacres on Lake Michigan, for the less talented player, but their courses later serves as a template for the modern Raynor adeptly incorporates a stream and are unceasing in their challenges to those day architect striving to create, and modern ravine that runs through the property into the looking to make a good score. day golfers yearning to play, interesting and architecture. There is no Macdonald layout to This philosophy was first implemented challenging golf courses. GCA which Shoreacres corresponds. at the National, a point English golf writer If there is a misinterpretation of Raynor, Bernard Darwin recognised after playing Anthony Pioppi is a golf journalist, and is also and Macdonald, it is that they moved heaven it “If there is one feature of the course executive director of the Seth Raynor Society

34 Golf Course Architecture Golf design in the tradition of the great classics Photo: Mike Klemme Mike Photo:

ADVERT ADVERT

Omni Bedford Springs Resort Bedford, PA

89 SUTTON AVENUE EXTENSION HOPWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA 15445 724.438.1727 www.forsedesign.net Email: [email protected]

Driven to Excellence.

The difference between good and great synthetic courses lies in the hands of those who build them. At Southwest Greens, we use the most advanced and comprehensive techniques crafted through years of experience. By working with the world’s best architects and builders, we have developed a world-class reputation for delivering innovative synthetic turf solutions that are built to last.

ADVERT ADVERT

Top of The Rock, Ridgedale, MissouRi, usa Mastering the Art of Synthetic Turf Installations. an aRnold palMeR design Southwest Greens Construction • +34 616 582 787 • [email protected]. • southwestgreens.eu A division of Shaw, a Berkshire Hathaway Company. OPINION

The ground game Open Jay Blasi explains why Chambers Bay, host to this year’s US Open, is different from any previous course to hold the championship

hambers Bay will mark a number used on approach shots as well as greenside of firsts for the US Open; first recoveries. These sideboards, backboards, US Open course in the Pacific kicker slopes, rolls, swales, hillocks, spines Northwest, first US Open course and bowls can separate eager competitors playedC on all fescue turf, first modern from those who might fall away, frustrated design to host the championship since by what they see as ‘unfairness’. Hazeltine National in the 1970s. But Skilled players are notorious for their beyond championships, what’s interesting ability to control their golf ball. Many of about Chambers Bay is how it encourages them routinely hit towering long irons 220 creativity on the ground. Chambers Bay, yards or more, stopping them on a dime. perhaps more than any other American On the great UK courses, players are asked championship course, features green to deal with the wind and firm conditions. surrounds with major slopes that must be They will often discuss with their caddie the idea of landing the ball short and letting it release to the hole. Occasionally a ball will catch a slope and run off into a pot bunker. FROM QUARRY TO US OPEN At Chambers Bay players are asked to go a step further. Almost every approach shot has some form of hazard to avoid (perhaps a bunker, a fairway hollow, or a dune) and there are options for players on how to attack. Players can play shots directly at the target, but given the firm conditions that may not be the best way to get close to the hole. Instead, the smart players will study the features around the greens and figure out how to use them in order to get close to the hole.

Photo: Copyright Mummert USGA/John Photo: For example, the fifth hole is a long par four with a menacing bunker in the front centre of the green. Usually, skilled players wouldn’t think much about hitting a high shot over the bunker. But at Chambers Bay, with firm and fast conditions, the aerial approach is unlikely to yield positive results. Instead, the players will need to look right and left. There they will find strong sideboards that can be used. So in order to hit a shot onto the middle of the green, players will likely need to land their ball short Located on the shores of Puget Sound in grasses. It was awarded the 2015 US Open right of the green, and let it roll up onto the University Place, Washington, just south of in early 2008 and has the potential to be the sideslope and feed down into the middle of the Seattle, Chambers Bay was designed by the longest course in Major championship history. green. This same type of dilemma confronts Robert Trent Jones II firm and developed by Over a million cubic metres of sand and earth players throughout the entire round. Pierce County. Opening in 2007, the course was were moved to construct the course, which was In 2010, the US Amateur was played at built on the site of a former sand and gravel intended to replicate the playing conditions of Chambers Bay and the results were telling. quarry and was planted entirely with fescue the classic links courses of Britain and Ireland. The championship concluded with Peter Uihlein (then the world’s top-ranked

36 Golf Course Architecture Photos: Copyright Mummert USGA/John Photos:

The fifth (top) and thirteenth holes at Chambers Bay, where players need to study the slopes around the green in order to get approach shots close to the hole

amateur) defeating David Chung (ranked The player who embraces the ground second). As interesting as the finish was, game will always be at an advantage at “At Chambers Bay, the early rounds told a story as well. Many Chambers Bay. The player with great players had never experienced links golf imagination around the greens will be with firm and fast before. Some were frustrated by their ball at an advantage. The player who shapes not finishing where they hit it. Those players each shot and changes trajectory will be conditions, the aerial left early. Others, and in particular Uihlein, at an advantage. embraced the ground game. Uihlein and his Be it for a US Open or simply the approach is unlikely to caddie Alan Bratton studied the slopes and thinking golfer, Chambers Bay will be an were in constant discussion over where to exhilarating challenge. GCA yield positive results” land the ball and in which manner to land the ball. On the thirteenth hole, another long par four, the caddie and player agreed Jay Blasi is a golf course architect based in to land the ball left of the green, but debated California. While working for the Robert Trent if that should be done with cut spin or draw Jones II firm he served as project architect for spin. It is this type of thought that will more Chambers Bay and designed the course along often yield success at Chambers Bay. with Jones and Bruce Charlton

37 ON SITE One hit wonder? Former touring pro Niall Cameron’s design debut at Assoufid is a strong performance, says Adam Lawrence

The par three seventeenth at Assoufid is framed by the Atlas mountains

38 Golf Course Architecture Assoufid

orocco – especially the historic number of new golf developments have course was finished and playable, albeit city of Marrakech – has been sprung up in recent years – is basically flat. obviously very young, but none of the something of a boom market The Assoufid property, though, is rather supporting infrastructure had been started. for golf development in the different – looking across from the course Now, the course has its clubhouse, practice Mlast five years or so. There has been golf in to the surrounding land shows what the site facilities and so on, though the hotel Morocco for many years – a result of the must have looked like before construction. It and housing that will be the core of the royal family’s commitment to the game – but is pleasantly undulating, though not so steep development is only just getting under way. recently, tourist investment has accelerated, as to be a tough walk, and has an abundance The course begins in relatively gentle fashion, with the country’s year-round reliable of natural feature, most obviously a dry but really hits its stride at the fifth hole, a weather and easy access from key European river bed, or ‘shaaba’ in the local language, good par four with an intimidating blind tee locations making it ‘the next big thing’. which comes into play several times on the shot over a ridge. The front side returns to the Cameron, formerly head professional back nine of Cameron’s design. It is, I think, clubhouse at the ninth, an excellent par three at clubs such as Turnberry and Royal St clearly the most interesting piece of land that from a slightly elevated tee, featuring a green George’s, has been based in Sicily for the last has been made available for development in banked into a left to right sideslope. Somewhat few years, working as director of golf at the the Marrakech area, and Cameron’s course unusually, Cameron has bunkered the high Kyle Phillips-designed Verdura resort. makes good use of it. side of the green; missing left will leave either a Though its position in full view of the Assoufid’s birth has been a protracted tricky downhill bunker shot, or alternatively a majestic Atlas mountains is a central part process. The course itself was built several very delicate pitch over the bunkers to a green of Marrakech’s appeal, the area immediately years ago – this writer first visited the sloping away. Missing on the right is probably around the city – where a substantial property some three years back, when the a wiser course of action! Photo: Steve Carr Steve Photo:

39 Photos: Steve Carr Steve Photos:

Niall Cameron’s design makes good use of a dry river bed – or ‘shaaba’, in the local language – which comes into play several times on the back nine, including the tenth (top) and the fourteenth (bottom), where a clump of trees in the landing zone creates a split fairway

The back nine, though, is where the course will be best placed to aim straight at the trees Niall Cameron may never have designed really shows its quality. The tenth hole marks and trust that their miss will leave them in a course before Assoufid, but it’s clear that the first encounter with the shaaba, which good position on either side; there does not he has learned what makes for good golf runs in front of the green. The fairway is appear to be a compelling advantage to one holes during his long and varied career. wide, and the tee shot seems, at first glance, route over the other. The routing is strong – the course is an fairly straightforward, but the hole doglegs After finishing the fifteenth, golfers must easy walk, with few awkward connections, slightly to the right, as well as diving downhill double back along the edge of the shaaba apart from that walk back down the towards the creek just at the end of the for 200 yards or so to reach the next tee, a fourteenth – and the desert landscaping landing zone. A safe tee shot out to the left slightly worrisome walk if there is a group theme that has been adopted works on will leave a much longer approach across the coming up the hole behind you. However, multiple levels. It isn’t an easy course to riverbed; better to bite off more and place it’s worth the hike, as the finishing holes lose lots of balls on, and the desert areas the drive down the right side of the fairway. are the best stretch on the golf course. The have been cleared of most of the stones, Should your approach go in the shaaba, sixteenth, a shortish par four, requires a so should you miss a fairway, it is likely it’s worth investigating – some balls will be drive across the river bed and a pitch to a you will at least have a shot. Where his playable, others will be among rocks. But green set into an amphitheatre in the hillside, inexperience is visible, though, is in the certainly it is a better play to take enough club while the par three seventeenth is played bunkers and greens. The bunkering is and make the carry in the first place! across the riverbed, an extremely strong typically well placed, but a bolder touch Many will regard the par five fourteenth hole. And the finisher is another good par could well have brought a more dramatic hole as the course’s most memorable. A clump four, with a slightly uphill drive where, as on aesthetic – which would have suited the of trees splits the landing zone, and the hole the tenth, taking a tighter line can shorten property – to bear. And the greens are narrows progressively between the shaaba and the approach shot dramatically. The hole mostly quite gentle – again, bolder putting the boundary fence as the green comes closer. doglegs and rises sharply to the right after surfaces would have made a good course It’s unarguably dramatic, but in my eyes the the landing zone, and a well hit drive played stronger still. Nonetheless, if Cameron hole doesn’t quite work; the corridor is just not too far left can easily find bunkers on the far never gets to design another golf course, wide enough for a split fairway of this kind. side of the fairway. The right hand line looks he can be happy to know that when called, Very long hitters may be able to carry a driver intimidating from the tee – bunkers and he did a more than competent job; while over the trees and bring the green in range in scrub threaten – but committing to that line the golfers who come to play Assoufid will two, but for normal mortals the question is and executing the shot can result in a very get considerable pleasure from his work for which narrow gap to aim for. Some, in truth, short iron for the final approach shot. many years to come. GCA

40 Golf Course Architecture Turf on a Global Scale™

The international source for the world’s finest warm and cool season turfgrasses. PASPALUM • BERMUDAGRASS • ULTRA DWARF BERMUDAGRASS • ZOYSIA BENTGRASS • FESCUE • KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS • PERENNIAL RYEGRASS Phone +1 706 881 2430 • Email [email protected] www.atlasturf.com

Huxley All-Weather Putting Greens Premier All-Weather Surfaces for Golf

UK and Overseas Enquiries: Tel +44 (0)1962 733222 Huxley Golf All-Weather Putting Green Email: [email protected] at The University of Stirling, Scotland www.huxleygolf.com

Golf Course Architecture 194mm x 128.5mm.indd 1 13/01/2015 10:18 ON SITE Tiger’s homage to Augusta On an atypical undulating piece of land north of Houston, Tiger Woods’ design firm is creating a pretty remarkable course for developer Beacon Land. Adam Lawrence paid a visit

ouston is flat. I have visited the late Texas oil baron Thomas Blake. Blake the golf course, which in places uses the hole capital of Texas’ oil industry on sev- commissioned the Coore & Crenshaw firm corridors left by Blaketree National, but in eral occasions, and until now I have to design his course, but fell out with the other areas is completely new. never seen anything that would architects during the build, and completed Bluejack feels remote – to get there, Hlead me to doubt that statement. So, when the project on his own. one drives north from Houston through I heard that developers Michael Abbott and dormitory communities, small towns and Casey Paulson had teamed up to form a new countryside – but in fact it is close to hotbeds company, Beacon Land, that their first project “The opportunity is of development. It is close to the large (and was to be just north of Houston, and that they growing) community of the Woodlands, and had hired Tiger Woods’ design firm to create here to create a golf oil giant Exxon has announced plans to move the course for them, I was a little sceptical. its global HQ to a new site north of the city, That part of Texas, after all, is not famous course unlike any and happily nearby. Two new highways are for great golf. The climate is tough to say being built that will make access to the course the least, and most of the surrounding areas other in the Houston easy, and the Exxon project will create 13,000 have heavy soil and very little in the way of jobs only a few miles away. It is an enviable interesting ground contours. The Woods firm, area, and our goal is location for a new development. announced with great fanfare several years Both developers and architects are keen ago, had become caught up in the effects of for it to be among the to retain that sense of remoteness. The 400 the global economic slowdown; its debut homesites planned will encircle the golf project in Dubai had disintegrated amid best in the nation” course, around the outside of the 755 acre huge amounts of wasted money and its first site, but in only a small number of spots American project, at the Cliffs communities in will housing be visible from the course. North Carolina was going nowhere after the Blake died in 2001, and some years later the Discovery Land, Abbott’s former company, bankruptcy of the developer. golf course went bust. Abbott, formerly with was famous for off-the-chart levels of Then I had the opportunity to visit. top-end development firm Discovery Land, service at its developments, and the same Much that I saw on my visit to Bluejack heard about the property, and, after visiting, sort of environment is planned for Bluejack. National, about an hour north of Houston resolved to purchase it and create a new golf “Bluejack National has one of the best city surprised me, but in truth nothing club and residential offering. He invited Coore natural settings for golf I have seen,” Woods shocked me so much as the site itself, a & Crenshaw back to the property, but his ideas has said. “With its changes in elevation, the piece of beautiful, largely sandy ground did not match with those of the designers and, beautiful pines and hardwoods, Bluejack with tremendous natural undulation. The via architect Beau Welling, made contact with National is reminiscent of the pinelands of property was previously the location of the the Woods firm. Now, Woods, Welling and the Georgia and the Carolinas. The opportunity Blaketree National course, developed by the rest of their team are hard at work creating is here to create a golf course unlike any

42 Golf Course Architecture From left, Casey Paulson, Michael Abbot, Tiger Woods and Andy Mitchell, surrounding one of the site’s symbolic bluejack oaks

The fourth hole on the Bay course at Navarino Dunes runs along the coast

43 other in the Houston area, and our goal is for it to be among the best in the nation.” The most important question, of course, is what will the golf course be like? Anyone familiar with Coore & Crenshaw’s work will be aware that the firm does not tend to take on projects where the site is less than very good, perhaps even exceptional, so Bluejack has a head start in this regard. As mentioned above, the ground is mostly a sandy loam, with some areas of heavier soil. Director of agronomy Eric Bauer says he expects the good soil to help in his quest to have the course playing fast and bouncy; and to this end it will be grassed almost entirely with Zeon zoysia, the variety used on the Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro. Zeon is not a new grass, but it has recently become fashionable, as its water requirements are significantly lower than most other warm season options. Bauer says the entire course will be maintained at a single height of cut, with fairway grass extending right to the native areas and trees, which will deploy pine straw to suppress weed growth and make finding errant shots straightforward. It’s this single height of cut approach that makes me think the designers are consciously trying to create an homage to “Bluejack National has one of the best natural Augusta National – or at least the Augusta of settings for golf I have ever seen,” says Woods, memory, before the much-criticised ‘second whose routing has echoes of Augusta National, cut’ of rough was introduced. At various most notably at the short twelfth times during his nascent design career, Woods has made reference to his fondness for the sandbelt courses of Melbourne in Australia, but here he and his team have embraced a very different aesthetic. Bunkers, for example, are few in number, especially in comparison to the sand-heavy environment of Melbourne, and their shapes are unfashionably (but rather elegantly) clean-edged and sand flashed. Combined with brilliant white sand, the comparison to Augusta is hard to miss. The terrain too is not dissimilar to the legendary Georgia venue, though Bluejack’s slopes and rolls are less dramatic. No greens had been grassed at the time of my visit, so a detailed assessment of their contours will have to wait, but the developers’ communications suggest that the slopes will be relatively mild, to enable Bauer green set alongside a pond – but with plenty but should also enable members’ children to have them running at high speeds without of room around it – will set the tempo for to get a gentle introduction to the game. being unreasonably difficult. Like Augusta, a the round. The course tips out at over 7,500 Such courses are becoming increasingly mix of pines and hardwoods (including the yards, but when the Texas weather is not too popular as clubs realise the importance of bluejack oak after which the course is named) hot or humid, the tightly knit routing should developing the next generation; it is perhaps line the property. Like Augusta, most greens make for a pleasant walk, though I dare say a little unfortunate that only the children are basically at grade to their surrounds, the uphill drag to the home green will result of wealthy members will get to experience promoting opportunities for run-up shots in walkers coming into the clubhouse rather this one. Nonetheless, a designer cannot set should players wish to play them. more out of breath than they might like. his client’s business model, and Bluejack is, The course will have standout holes aplenty, Woods, Welling and team are also creating I think, certain to be one of the Houston though the short par three twelfth, playing a nine hole academy course set close to area’s outstanding golf experiences. Woods’ over a pond and looking irresistibly like a new the clubhouse and the block of suites that design career so far may have been rather version of Augusta’s twelfth, is among the most will accommodate members who do not more prone to accidents and false starts than memorable. The seventeenth, which occupies have a house on the property when they the great golfer might have wished, but if part of the same corridor as the twelfth, will visit. This course, again on a fine piece this is destined to be his first contribution to be an exciting short par four, as will the eighth. of undulating land, will serve as a great US golf, he can sleep well at night knowing The first hole, which plays over a ridge to a place for a post-dinner hit and giggle, that it is a very good one indeed. GCA

45 ON SITE A sustainable tropical paradise

Thailand’s popular Laguna Phuket resort course has undergone a major makeover, and has become a template for courses in the region, says Adam Lawrence

ropical locations are hard places the site was rehabilitated, and the huge resort wrote in GCA two years ago, is tough and to build golf courses. The tropics opened in the middle 1990s. Twenty years survives even in severe drought conditions. are characterised by weather that is on, the thousand acre site includes six large This instinct for survival enables course virtually always hot and humid and hotels, together providing several thousand managers to keep the grass to a strict regime rainT events that, when they come, come hard rooms – with more on the way – as well as a of little water, encouraging firm playing – 100mm (four inches) of rain in one go is large number of private homes. It is a huge conditions, during the dry season at least. commonplace during the wet season. development, and a stunning success. In a region where most golf courses have The result of weather like this is that Laguna Phuket’s golf course was originally favoured lush and green over lean and mean, Pete Dye’s well-known definition of golf designed by Max Wexler, who has built a it was a bold choice. And it’s one that Jansen architecture – ‘making drainage look good’ – is number of courses around SE Asia, and repeated at Laguna Phuket. especially crucial in this environment. In these David Abell, then an executive with Banyan “We have designed and graded the ground circumstances it is easy to see a golf project as Tree, and opened in 1992. “It was a pretty to help with surface drainage and to create an engineering exercise before it is anything straightforward resort course – the fairways strategic interest,” says the architect. “We else, and for playing interest or aesthetic were flat and so were the greens, and the have used fairway tiers, mounds, swales value to fall way down the list of priorities. whole place was quite open,” says director and ridges to promote the ground and Engineering a golf course to remove rain on of golf Paul Wilson. “So we concluded we make golfers think a bit more. Using the this scale quickly, and so to be playable in a needed to upgrade the golf course to match manilagrass will also give us the best chance short time after the rain is complex, and it the standard of the rest of the resort.” of getting run during the dry months.” requires compromises that can impact on play Wilson and his team engaged architect Paul Jansen’s project had two key goals: to – the water has to go somewhere, and therefore Jansen to carry out the redesign. Jansen, South make the course more strategically and a course is likely to include a generous number African by birth, formerly worked for Nick visually interesting, but also to increase its of water features, just to provide somewhere Faldo’s design practice, but now heads his own sustainability. A dramatic reduction in the the rain can drain into. firm Jansen Golf Design & Construction – amount of maintained turf meant that the Banyan Tree hotel company founder KP Ho came to Phuket having just finished the new – irrigation system could also be shrunk – and his wife found the Laguna Phuket site and highly acclaimed – Laguna Lang Co course from 1,200 irrigation heads previously down while holidaying on the island, concluded it on the Vietnamese coast on Faldo’s behalf. The to 700 now. Bunkers have also been reduced would be a great place for a resort and resolved connection to Lang Co is significant. – the original course had over 100, but now to buy it. What they did not know, at the time, The Vietnamese course was one of the there are only 37. is that the large area of undeveloped land was very first in Asia to use manilagrass (Zoysia Jansen reckons creating a connection the remnants of an abandoned tin mine, and matrella) deliberately on its fairways. between the course and its local environment the mining operations had left the land in a Matrella is native to the region, and, as Asian was another key goal. “I want golfers to feel very poor state. After much work, though, Turfgrass Center director Micah Woods that they are part of a story that is closely

46 Golf Course Architecture Paul Jansen’s redesign of Laguna Phuket had two key goals: making the course more strategically and visually interesting to play, and increasing its sustainability

linked to the surrounds and history,” he says. “Obviously we looked to highlight the key features on site and off site, such as mountain views, but we have also introduced local furniture – local boats in the water bodies for example – and small detail of this kind help give the course a sense of belonging.” “Through the construction very bumpy landscape that is now in place. Jansen little has gone to waste – for instance the and Lawson have created a course that is, at “We have used fairway trees we removed we have used for steps least when the weather is dry, an invitation and benches, for woodchips in the rough to golfers to play running shots and to use tiers, mounds, areas and for wood-ties on some of our contours to get the ball where they want it. steep slopes,” Jansen says. “We propagated Perhaps the most remarkable hole on the swales and ridges to a good portion of the wetland plants found golf course is the tenth – formerly the first, on the site and transplanted them elsewhere as the nines were reversed as part of the promote the ground on the course or where we have extended renovation. A shortish downhill par four, the existing water bodies.” the hole doglegs slightly to the right, and and make golfers No golf contractor was involved at Laguna for most golfers, a controlled rather than Phuket. Jansen, along with his construction- violent tee shot will be best, to leave the most think a bit more” focused colleague, Australian shaper Mark straightforward pitch possible. The green, Lawson, who also served as project manager steeply built up at the back as a pond sits along with superintendent Blair Pratt, were behind and below, is the most contoured on full of opportunities to take aggressive able to handle the whole build using local the course, falling away dramatically from lines or play safe. Jansen and Lawson resources where needed. front to back. It is a hole that many golfers between them have turned that flat and But what’s really remarkable about the will feel they should birdie, but the severe featureless course into something really project is just how entertaining the golf green will make any threes both hard earned impressive – while at the same time course now is. Wilson’s description of the and richly deserved. reducing the maintenance burden for the old course as flat and relatively featureless The tenth may be the most dramatic, managers. It is a very smart piece of design is hard to countenance given the humpy- but the new-look Laguna Phuket isThe stuffed fourth hole onand the Bay construction course at Navarino indeed. Dunes GCA runs along the coast

47 The Professionals of Turf Irrigation HOLING OUT Upgrade your golf course ! New movie celebrates Donald Ross Film maker Cob Carlson’s latest work is a poem of praise to Pinehurst architect Before

ven within the world of golf a pioneer – he left Scotland for America as a whole, course design is with only a small amount of luggage something of a niche interest. It’s including his clubmaking tools, and very hardly surprising, then, that golf little money, and on arriving in Boston architectureE topics rarely make a splash he walked several miles to his professor in the mainstream media. Recently, the friend’s home. Golf Channel has instituted an annual The film also includes detailed Architecture Week, featuring interviews profiles on some of Ross’s key courses. with a range of designers, and books Unsurprisingly Pinehurst No. 2 features on the subject still get printed. But US in the most detail, but places such as film maker Cob Carlson’s profile picture Inverness are also included, with, where Donald Ross: Discovering the Legend must possible, evidence of how these courses surely be a first of its kind. looked when Ross and his team left them. The Boston-based Carlson’s work Ross’s importance to the development includes an acclaimed documentary of American golf can be clearly seen on Irish American history, and he first from a few simple statistics. During the conceived the idea of a Ross biopic around years 1919-1931, no less than eight of the the time of the US Open at Pinehurst in thirteen US Opens were played on courses 2005. No mainstream media was prepared he had designed, and his influence on B ● Unrivalled uniformity with CU = 93% for to fund it though, and the project stayed course architecture across the country E HYDRA-S (source: CIT) on the back burner for several years, until was immense. He is credited with ● Central flow system reduces hydraulic friction Carlson revived the idea in the run-up to bringing to America the idea that the N last year’s twin Opens at Pinehurst. perfect course is one that pleases players and provides exceptional performance Golfweek architecture editor and Ross of all standards, while still providing a E ● Self-flushing technology for reliable pop-up biographer Brad Klein was an advisor stout challenge to the very best, and, as F and pop-down throughout the project and is listed as Tom Doak says in one interview in the I ● Both left and right sectors are adjustable executive producer – he also makes frequent film, his habit of building courses that ● All parts accessible from the top including appearances during the film itself. So do were tightly routed and easy to walk set T a stellar cast of golfing names, including the tone for what golf was supposed to solenoid and rock screen Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Rees Jones be all over the US. Fans of other great S ● Convenient access via snap-on lid (HYDRA-M) and Tom Doak – Nicklaus crediting Ross, architects, whether Colt, Macdonald, who designed Scioto in Ohio, the course on MacKenzie or Tillinghast, might quibble which he learned the game, with forming with Carlson’s assertion that Ross was the his ideas on how golf should be played. The greatest of all, but it is hard to watch this film runs for almost two hours, and makes two hours of film without being awed by extensive use of material from the Tufts the sheer breadth and Archives at Pinehurst. quality of his work, The Dornoch-born Ross came to the and recognising how US in 1899, at the age of 26. Still at that important he was time unmarried, he had met a Harvard “During the years to the development professor in Scotland, and that man had of golf in America. helped him get a job as professional, 1919-1931, no less Carlson’s movie is clubmaker and greenkeeper at Oakley CC recommended to all outside Boston, the first eighteen hole than eight of the golfers, in America or course in Massachusetts. Carlson’s film elsewhere. GCA emphasises one important fact – just how thirteen US Opens early in American golfing history this was Priced at US$30, the – the USGA had only been founded five were played on courses movie can be ordered years previously, and the first US Open online via the website played in 1895. Ross was, in every sense he had designed” www.donaldrossfilm.com www.perrot.de HYDRA series

48 Golf Course Architecture PERROT Regnerbau Calw GmbH, Industriestrasse 19-29, D-75382 Althengstett/Germany, Tel. +49-7051-1620 E-Mail: [email protected]

RING-2015-GOLF-VORHER-NACHHER-280x210-A4-E.indd 1 20.02.2015 07:34:41 The Professionals of Turf Irrigation Upgrade your golf course !

Before

B ● Unrivalled uniformity with CU = 93% for E HYDRA-S (source: CIT) ● Central flow system reduces hydraulic friction N and provides exceptional performance E ● Self-flushing technology for reliable pop-up F and pop-down I ● Both left and right sectors are adjustable ● All parts accessible from the top including T solenoid and rock screen S ● Convenient access via snap-on lid (HYDRA-M)

www.perrot.de HYDRA series

PERROT Regnerbau Calw GmbH, Industriestrasse 19-29, D-75382 Althengstett/Germany, Tel. +49-7051-1620 E-Mail: [email protected]

RING-2015-GOLF-VORHER-NACHHER-280x210-A4-E.indd 1 20.02.2015 07:34:41 Infinite Variety at Copt Heath The green of the seventeenth hole with restored Colt bunkers

Restoring Europe’s classics, and creating new ones....

Contact Frank Pont at [email protected] or +31-641058300 Follow us at www.infinitevarietygolf.com and @IVGD1

Downloading Onto Computer Or Otherwise Without the Prior Written Permission­ from Tudor Rose Holdings Ltd

Downloading Onto Computer Or Otherwise Without the Prior Written Permission from Tudor Rose Holdings Ltd