- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 6, 2023
I’ve often wondered what the magic behind the world’s most successful golf courses really is. Is it one thing in particular, or a combination of things? How much influence does the quality of the golf course have as part of the overall development? What is it that players rate highly and why are some courses just so far ahead in players perceptions when they’re fundamentally offering the same experience?
Over the years, I’ve come to know and understand that it’s the site itself that gives the course it’s personality and so much of the whole golf operation hangs off the merits of the site itself. Of course, there are great golf architects out there who would be able to take a boring site and turn it into something great. However, only the best golf architects have the ability to utilise every bit of personality in the site to weave the golf course into the existing character of the land. A little help from a specialist contractor goes a long way too – take a look at the rock work on our South Korean beauty, Centerium Country Club.
The landscape and its features are a vital component of a golf course as it shapes how the course looks and plays. Retaining existing landscape features from craggy rocks to natural areas of scrub are critical in creating a character that is both sympathetic to its surroundings as well as helping to maximise the visual impact needed for that arrival experience for the golfer. Creating a sense of place is essential for the playing experience otherwise the whole thing feels contrived, as though it’s been stuck onto the land like a band-aid.
Take one of our projects in Mauritius for example, the picture shows a seriously interesting coastline with black volcanic rocks, mangrove swamps and shallow lagoons. Whilst it may be tempting to try to change the coastline to make a perfect golfing strategy, we wouldn’t even think about actually doing it. Instead, treating the site with the appropriate respect, we utilise the natural features of the site to create a unique aesthetic only seen on this golf course. This is the sort of landscape feature that will be remembered and discussed many times over, creating that perfect photo opportunity that brings people back to the course over and over. You’ll have to wait to see the finished product in a few years’ time!
The best thing about this design methodology is that it’s actually easier than taking a “blank slate” approach. When viewing a site from the air with existing trees, rocks and other vegetation winding through, often natural clearings are apparent which lend themselves to bunker locations, green locations or even fairway landing zones. These locations, combined with the topography, start to stand out and almost naturally make a golf hole/course on their own, it is this vision that golf course architects need in order to design beautiful and challenging yet fun golf courses.
So, if we start with a great site, I believe the whole operation starts to make so much more sense. After all, one of the greatest elements of golf is to be out in the open air, appreciating the surrounding environment whether on the Atlantic coast, in the deserts of the GCC of in classic UK parkland. Let’s try to retain as much of that character as possible and the result will be better, more interesting golf facilities that will perform better in the long run.
The process that leads to the creation of a golf course is shaped by culture. Creating a golf course entails engineering (computer technology), making (construction), packaging and marketing (mass appeal), comparing and rating (mass media) and the people (fame and notoriety).
This is what it takes today to be a designer -- not just to envision but to create something that will resonate with various audiences - whether golfers, fellow architects or even the media. For a moment, it might be instructive to play the role of a visionary, only to do so retrospectively. Look back at a time before the present culture overtook the past, when nature was a refuge, when art was influenced by ideas of nature, when natural artists defined culture by showing links between human and natural worlds.
For our use in creating a course, modern culture has equipped us with computer software, large earthmoving equipment and the opinions of golfers and writers. Yet, the past resource - nature - has been redefined by packaging and marketing and replaced by the term "environmentally friendly", a description with mass appeal that downplays how we imposed our will on the land.
The creative process employed in course design should begin with a face-to-face encounter with land and nature. In this way, the architect is more willing to cooperate with nature, not impose a will to make it conform. This is a land-based architect. Every project seems vast or difficult in the beginning. Technology makes almost anything possible; problems can be solved on paper and with money.
Hard work on the land and confronting the realities of these difficult problems are not necessary because the architect can work a solution on paper without leaving the office, and technology and money can implement the solution. This can make the land-based architect anxious when confronted with difficult problems caused by wetlands, steep slopes, contiguous forests and awkward parcels caused by property lines.
Given these difficult constraints, can we find a course on this land, or must we leave it to the big machines to rearrange the land to make a course? Why try too hard to work with nature if we have the modern technology and wealth to impose the kind of beauty that has mass appeal?
Land-based design requires a specific engagement with nature. This engagement is a satisfying creative process. All of the cultural pressures - technology, marketing, mass media, public expectations - are suspended when the land-based architect straps on boots and goes on the land to become immersed in discovery and curiosity.
The persistent, land-based architect walks the land repeatedly. The feeling of anxiety is replaced by exhilaration that comes from the awareness of the land's subtle qualities.
Through a slow process - slow when comparing three days walking the land with four hours in the office scratching on a base map - the land-based architect discovers how the course strategy connects with nature - the terrain, plants, soil, drainage, wind and light.
By trusting discovery, the period of walking the land looking for the natural golf hold becomes humbling and gratifying. Will this approach yield a good course? Where's the give? Where's the take? Is this approach relevant to the game? With a kind of blind faith, the land-based architect ventures out to find the energy in the land. Egotism, arrogance and the desire for recognition give way to a wild delight in the beauty and infinite space of the landscape. Routing begins to emerge from the land rather than being forced upon it, as happens so often when working on paper or computer screen.
When returning to the office or home, anxiety sometimes creeps back. Have I missed opportunities? Am i going to get the most out of the natural features? Am I going to create a seamless experience that captures the best of the land's natural features into the strategy of the course? Again, these doubts usually are erased with the next visit to the land.
Land-based design embodies the course with a majestic decorum that we never tire of seeing. Land-based design reinstalls reason and faith into the creative design process.
Mr. Kelly Blake Moran
Golf Architect