15 / 26
15
narrow corridor of golf surrounded by
houses on both sides.”
“The most complicated routing
assignments get that way due to the
list of constraints becoming nearly
endless,” says Richardson. “Since
the late 1970s we have seen more
and more golf courses proposed on
denigrated land. That list includes
old landfills, low-lying land prone to
flooding and land that is leftover after
housing or other development. It is
not always that the golf course gets its
choice of land, although that is usually
best if it can be accommodated.
This is not to say that good routings
cannot be created on less than ideal
land—many great courses have. But it
makes the assignment infinitely more
difficult, and the golf architect must be
extremely clever.
“The other category of difficult
routings is when we go to re-route
existing courses, as in the case of
the total makeover. While we already
have a canvas to work upon, it is
almost always sprinkled with even
more constraints than if there had
never been a course there in the first
place. We may have water reservoirs,
existing neighborhoods, roadways
and even cherished trees to preserve.
Overall these can be the toughest to
work out.”
Bringing it all together
It’s possible to have all the elements
in place, but for the puzzle to remain
incomplete.
“You can have 18 good golf holes
and still not have a good golf course.
By that, I mean that everything has
to evolve from a greater context.
Holes must emanate from the land.
So, as architects, we have to resist
any inclination to impose a hole onto
the land if the design of that hole
doesn’t work in harmony with its
environment,” says Smyers.
Clockwise from top left:
ASGCA Past President Steve
Smyers, ASGCA, walking
the site at a new project
near Orlando, Florida; Art
Schaupeter, ASGCA, with
Steve Wenzloff of the PGA
Tour at the TPC Colorado site;
Forrest Richardson, ASGCA,
considers how to configure
a routing for a course that
will need to be set above
landfill layers that cannot be
disturbed; Recording GPS
points for possible green sites
so they can be studied later
in detail when routing options
are developed
Literally
hundreds of decisions
are
being made all at once
Photo: Forrest Richardson & Assoc.
Photo: Michael Cooper