By Design - Fall 2019

14 | By Design UNIVERSITY GOLF DESIGN layout in Indiana was created by William Langford and Theodore Moreau in 1924. The Course at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, a celebrated C.B. Macdonald creation with many of his famed template holes, opened in 1926. Wayne Stiles’ Taconic Golf Club in Williamstown, Massachusetts, was originally built for Williams College students in 1928. By the early 1930s—with George Thomas and Billy Bell completing their design at Stanford University in California and the opening of the University of Michigan’s course in Ann Arbor, a collaboration between Perry Maxwell and Alister Mackenzie—golf was firmly on the college agenda. Later, Robert Trent Jones, ASGCA, helped shape college golf, too. Jones will always be closely associated with Cornell, where as a student he designed a study program for his chosen profession as a golf course designer. He returned in the 1940s and 50s to create Cornell’s golf course, but also designed courses for the University of Georgia, Colgate University and Duke University, the latter renovated by his son, ASGCA Past President Rees Jones, himself a former NCAA golfer at Yale. Many more of America’s academic institutions have chosen to build courses on their campus, helping to attract students and generate revenue. The foundations for university design work can often be very sound. “Universities have lots of open land available to them, usually a fair amount of money to invest and see a golf course as an attractive amenity for alumni and students,” says ASGCA Past President Michael Hurdzan. But the bureaucratic nature of such institutions and often large number of decision-makers can make it difficult to understand and meet everyone’s needs. So, what makes a great college golf design? What do academic institutions want from their golf courses and what are the primary challenges that golf course architects face when designing a college course? A stern test One of the most frequently cited requirements for university golf courses is for them to be a stern test, to challenge and improve every aspect of a college golfer’s skills. Some of the most successful NCAA golf teams have notoriously difficult home courses—the 2018 NCAA golf champions Oklahoma State play at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, designed Scot Sherman, ASGCA, is currently working on a renovation of the Birdwood course at Boar’s Head Resort, home of the University of Virginia golf teams Photo: Love Golf Design We are trying hard to make golfers think . After all, isn’t that the point of the college experience?