[ward peyronnin]

After trying to digest all the comments/controversy/criticism of Medinah a couple of weeks ago I felt that an effort to identify what features distinguish great Parkland courses by ranking them in order of significance might help complete the debate.

How would a GCA rank site specific features if he had the luxury of choosing from several candidates for a parkland course?  Topography, natural hazards, green sites, surroundings, soils, tree and natural vegetation population?  

What parkland courses best fit these sets of criteria? Surely tbeing  a parkland course as defined by Forrest Richardson in his fine book"Routing the Golf Course" as " a land type or a design with preexisting or planted trees that takes on the look and feel of a traditional park" does not doom these ubiquitous course to bland tree lines alleys(not a direct comment on Medinah).  

Hope this is helpful

[Mark_Fine]

Ward,
I don't know about ranking the features but if you want to see what a great parkland course is all about, go play Merion!

[Eric Pevoto]

Mark, that sounds like a great idea.  Can I just give 'em a call?  

I'd put topography at the top of my list.  The better for variety.

[ForkaB]

I would say utilisation of topography (i.e. routing), and then green sites.

Actually, the same things I would use to judge links or heathland courses........

[mike_beene]

I would put green sites well in front.There are good and bad courses on all kinds of topography.The PGA is my evidence.

[ward peyronnin]

Eric

I think my initial read is the same as yours.  But then that relegates Medinah, Firestone and others to second tier at best. Much of the opinion on Medinah faulted the green movement as deficient; is that the body of opinion as to what best overcomes topographic inadequacies?  

How do the trees work into the equation because although Donald Ross and others do not cotton to trees on the golf course, they seem to be the defining feature of a parkland course and must be present by definitions that i've seen. Is there a natural arrangement when taken advantage of that is sublime versus the worst expression of the turfed bowling alley?

Perhaps i have only fallen into an exercise in semantics in order to concoct a thread but there were quite strong feelings regarding Medinah produced on this site which I never quite saw resolved and which i am interested in exploring to help me assess and appreciate these style courses. Seaside links are easier for me to value and take pleasure in perhaps because they are a more natural fit for the game and they have WIND.

I have played Merion and it does have it all: is Pine Valley a parkland course now?

[T_MacWood]

Ward
I wouldn't consider PV parkland...too sandy. I'm not sure Merion was designed to be a parkland course either, although it may be parkland today.

When I think of parkland courses I think of a park. An expansive lawn of grass and mature trees.

Is Pinehurst #2 parkland? It doesn't look like any park to me. Is Medinah parkland? IMO that is debatable...it looks like a golf course cut through a forest.

[cary lichtenstein]

How is a parkland course defined?  So many of the old classics that I have played, when I looked at pictures when they were built had nary a tree, and now the are tree lined cooridor courses.

Are they parkland courses?

[Mark_Fine]

Eric,
Good point    

It is hard to "rank" the features.  Having just got back from playing Winged Foot which is a parkland course, the topography is nothing special.  However, the greensites are some of the best you will find anywhere.  Go play Medinah's greens and then play Winged Foot's greens and you'll get a better understanding what impacts scoring.  

A parkland course is defined simply as a course built in parkland or in a parkland type setting.  

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, the term "parkland" golf course derives directly from the well-known classic English "parkland" estate look which always includes mature trees (generally landscape architecturally planted and arranged) with some magnificent long and open vistas through and around them, and in most cases the areas near the dwellings and buildnigs include rather closely mown grass such as lawn.

The "parkland" golf course traditionally was a similar look probably because a number of golf courses were built on both English and American "parkland" estates.

PVGC is definitely not "parkland" and frankly either is Merion East. In Philadelphia, Aronomink is a good example of a parkland style golf course.

In my opinion, the prevalent use of high fescue areas close to play is counter to the classic parkland look and parkland golf course look. The roughs should be closely mown pretty much throughout.

If you want to see what a classic parkland golf course should look like go pick up a book on English estates and look in the "parkland" section.

[Jim_Coleman]

   I agree with Tom.  Merion feels more like a heathland course to me - open, elevations, views, bunkering style.  To me, a parkland course MUST have trees.  Lots of mature trees,  internal trees, external trees, trees everywhere!  Too bad boys; live with it.  In Philly, pretty much all the Flynn courses, plus Cricket and Aronomink.  In GB, the ultimate is Sunningdale old.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim Coleman:

I object to the term "heathland" for Merion.  There's no heather on the property.  I don't know what you would call it, but not heathland.

To me a parkland course is a course with mature trees and lots of maintained rough.  Medinah is more of a forest course, as Tom MacWood said.  But how many categories do we want to make here?  If you just want animal, vegetable or mineral, then Merion and Medinah are parkland, because they aren't heathland and they sure aren't links.

[Noel Freeman]

I don't think I've ever played a US course that felt heathland like at all.  First of all it it tough to get that level of sandy soil here and the swaths of heather.. You need very acidic soils as I was told by my amigo Russell Talley as well as very dry and relatively warm summers. Perfect recipe for England and parts of Western Europe (France, Germany).  Most of the london heathlands were cleared, burned and used for farming which allowed the heath and bracken to thrive.  Unfortunately, a lot of that open space has been invaded by trees, notably birch and ash.

I think many people still confuse heath and moorland (where heath can grow).

That said, there are locales on Long Island or in Mass. that may remind one due to colors etc of heathland but are not close.  At the Berkshire I saw a cutout of about 5 feet of pure sand, don't think I've ever seen that in the US anywhere!

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Paul,
You are spending too much time in the city    Not all parkland areas are "closely mown".  By making that statement you will be raising maintenance budgets everywhere    

I have been lobbying at some of the parkland courses we are working on to leave some (mostly out of play areas) a little rough around the edges and re-introduce native grasses, etc.  The one place I have not yet been successful with this is at Cherry Hills.  I have advocated restoring the native areas that were once there but the committee feels they now have a "parkland" course and want wall to wall closely mown green (just as you are advocating).  We've had to put this on the back burner for the time being.  It is unfortunate because the look would be outstanding if/when they do it.  

[Jim_Coleman]

   I'm surprised heathland requires heather, at least to Tom.  The dictionary definition of "heath" is  "a tract of open land."  I think of Walton Heath, and probably Woodhall Spa.  If you need heather, then Merion can't be "heath."  But if you don't, it's more heath than it is links or parkland, at least to me.  Maybe it's just Merion.

[Mark_Fine]

Jim,
Maybe what you are thinking about is "moorland" which is a course built on open and rolling terrain, usually inland.

[Jim_Coleman]

    Maybe so.  Thanks.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
You are spending too much time in the city    Not all parkland areas are "closely mown".  By making that statement you will be raising maintenance budgets everywhere    

Mark:

No they probably aren't TODAY and that's precisely why I said that the use of high fescues and high roughs is totally counter to their original and traditional look, at least close in to play.

If you want to see what they are traditionally supposed to look like there is an album at NGLA with a remarkable collection of photos of them from the early 1900s probably in England and some of them with golfers hitting balls on some of those classic English "parkland" estates.

The interesting feature of those old photos is the massive amounts of mown lawn throughout interspersed with magnificent landscape architectually arranged trees and vistas.

If you want to do definitions of golf terms you need to do the historical research and this is what the "parkland" look was--on both those massive classic English and American parkland estates and on the courses from which the name and term came.

The classic English "Park" or "Parkland" estates were massive private estates that had been completely architecturally landscaped and by the likes of Humphrey Repton and Lancelot "Capability" Brown. They were meant to be a combination of impressive country building architecture of all kinds amongst huge acreage (sometimes thousands of acres) of buccolic country land with cattle and such in the backgrounds and deer and such in the backgrounds or closer in.

This is what the "parkland" estate was and still is and it's what the "parkland" golf course "look" and term derived from.

[Noel Freeman]

Jim- Heathland the word is obviously derived from Heather.. You need heather!  A lot of heathland courses have lost heather and yes the soil is still heath based but those places are trying to restore their plants (see Worplesdon for example)..

[TEPaul]

Merion East just does not fit neatly into any particular type or style of architecture, in my opinion.

It's just another of the old courses around here that was built on mostly old farmland. Merion's clubhouse is a combination of the old farmhouse and the old farm barn.

So what are we supposed to call that---the American "farmland" style of golf course architecture?

Why not----that's what they were.

Talk about the history of some of these old course sites. Our super was telling me the other day he went to the Montgomery County historical society and the family that owned the farm my course, Gulph Mills G.C. was built on, the Hughes family, were originally Loyalists that supported the crown and then morphed and began administering to William Penn's lands.

During the Revolutionary war George Washington stayed for two weeks in the house that was originally our first clubhouse and is now the super's house.

During that time Washington was taking his army from Whitemarsh to Valley Forge and he marched them down the old road that bisects our golf course and is used for maintenance vehicles.

About ten years ago Tom Fazio came to our course and recommended that we remove the old maintenance road that bissects our 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th holes because he said it breaks up the look and flow of those golf holes. But in credit to Fazio (who is originally from nearby Norristown) he did say that should only be done if that road was not historic.

Historic it most certainly is seeing as George Washington marched his Colonial army right down it as well as staying for a couple of weeks in the farm's house.  

[mike_malone]

 How about the soil ? I think of the challenge of clay based soil as distinctively "parkland".

[Ted Kramer]

Merion East just does not fit neatly into any particular type or style of architecture, in my opinion.

It's just another of the old courses around here that was built on mostly old farmland. Merion's clubhouse is a combination of the old farmhouse and the old farm barn.

So what are we supposed to call that---the American "farmland" style of golf course architecture?

Why not----that's what they were.

Talk about the history of some of these old course sites. Our super was telling me the other day he went to the Montgomery County historical society and the family that owned the farm my course, Gulph Mills G.C. was built on, the Hughes family, were originally Loyalists that supported the crown and then morphed and began administering to William Penn's lands.

During the Revolutionary war George Washington stayed for two weeks in the house that was originally our first clubhouse and is now the super's house.

During that time Washington was taking his army from Whitemarsh to Valley Forge and he marched them down the old road that bisects our golf course and is used for maintenance vehicles.

About ten years ago Tom Fazio came to our course and recommended that we remove the old maintenance road that bissects our 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th holes because he said it breaks up the look and flow of those golf holes. But in credit to Fazio (who is originally from nearby Norristown) he did say that should only be done if that road was not historic.

Historic it most certainly is seeing as George Washington marched his Colonial army right down it as well as staying for a couple of weeks in the farm's house.  

Great story Tom.
Thanks for sharing!

-Ted

[John Kirk]

The most important feature a parkland course must possess is ample width in the playing corridors between the trees.  Up here in Portland, most of the older clubs have narrow corridors.

One of the things I liked best about Winged Foot was the nice wide corridors.  Also, Kinloch in Virginia has really wide corridors to help the bent grass grow.

It takes real skill to hit low curving shots from under the trees, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
You make good points.  Actually Forrest and I talk about Lancelot Brown and all this stuff in chapter 2 of our book, page 21.  Maybe that is where you did your research  

My point was I would like to see "parkland" courses incorporate some of the native areas and a more natural look rather than the Augusta look.  They will save money in the process.  We are beginning to put them in at Arcola CC and the members love it.  They look great and don't impact speed of play.

[mike_malone]

 John,

    I play a parkland course that in its early days used trees in an exquisite way. The hardwoods were out of play for the most part and provided recovery shots because of the nature of the trees. Several holes were cut from the trees with a few doglegs being created.

    Within a few years of its opening more hardwoods were planted to create one more dogleg and separate the holes.

  Unfortunately, we needed to remove many of these from in back of the greens for agronomic reasons.


       Hardwoods that are set back from the line of play are a major feature of a parkland course.


       Evergreens, on the other hand, are rarely a good addition to parkland courses in our part of the world.

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