Golf Course Architecture - Issue 60, April 2020

31 The second phase of our project at Worplesdon Golf Club is just coming to an end, with the eighteenth hole in particular, dramatically improved as a result of the work. At Woking Golf Club, we continue our work with course manager Andy Ewence and the team on completing heathland enhancements to holes thirteen and fifteen. Meanwhile at St George’s Hill Golf Club, we have been gently improving the brilliant tenth hole, one of Colt’s greatest two shotters. The work is very delicate and low intensity: raising the sand line on the first fairway bunker for visibility, adding heather to the big horizon bunker and to the bank behind the green. On the par-three eleventh, we’ve removed rhododendrons – pretty, but non-native and invasive – from the carry area and replaced them with heather. And on the twelfth, we’ve re-heathered the big bunker in the carry. Is there a point in history that you are trying to return to, and how do you find out what the land was like then? At most golf clubs we always do a historical aerial study to assess how the course and, more importantly, how the landscape has changed over time. In the UK, this information is available from the 1940s but sometimes from the 30s as well. Our research at Huntercombe led to an excellent aerial analysis that would help to form the basis of our recommendations. What do you hope to achieve through these projects? For us the ultimate goal is producing a golf course that sits perfectly in its indigenous landscape. Golf has become too manicured, with natural landscapes not appreciated in recent times. It is pleasing to see that there is a movement towards landscape enhancement programmes, and we are very happy to be a proponent of that mindset as well. Has the work revealed some notable architecture features or particular playing strategies? The removal of scrub and undergrowth certainly reveals landscape and playing features to the edges of holes that were once covered up for years. We have noticed some unique Willie Park Jr features at Huntercombe as scrub and tree clearance continues. As the golf course sits on common land, a careful and considered approach is required, though we intend to bring some of these lost features and pits back into play, for example at the left of the twelfth green and to the left of the thirteenth green. Heather has been restored to bunker edges and surrounds on the eighteenth at Worplesdon (above), and Lobb has used historic aerial imagery (right) to guide scrub and tree clearance work on the fourth at Huntercombe Photos: Huntercombe Golf Club