How important is variety of setting?

[Bart Bradley]

This year I was blessed with traveling to see Ballyneal and Sand Hills.  I absolutely loved both golf courses.  Certainly both are among the best I've seen.  But, one thing that I missed was a variety of types of hazards and settings.  They are each beautiful and the holes are unique with a good variety of shot types and challenges.

I found myself wishing for a gorge or ravine or stream or ....

When I got to visit the Dormie, I was amazed at the variety of land that the course travels over...hardwoods, pines, sandy areas, lakes, crevices, ravines, ....The variety of landforms was amazing and I think that I may prefer a golf course with that variety..Here, there were all the great strategic golf elements of C/C and sandy soil and firm and fast conditions.

So, if the quality of the holes/strategies of play is equal, how important is variety of the setting?


Bart

[Anthony Gray]

  Bart,

  Wonderful observations. In a recent thread on Tetherow it was suggested that the course was juiced up to make up for the bland land around it.

  Aesthetics has a great deal to do with the golf experience. What would Pebble Beach be without the cliffs and the water?

  The elements you mentioned do add to the golfing experience and thus the quality of the course.

  Anthony

 

[Kenny Baer]

Bart,

I hope all is well.

I think you make an excellent point; the Dormie sounds awesome.  I would  wonder how many courses have alot of variety of terrain within the same course.  My guess would be that most ocean courses do because the holes by the sea are much different than the tree lined inland holes.  Finding an inland course with a lot of variety among the terrain is probably somewhat rare.

My opinion would be that variety among the terrain would do nothing but help the golf course but if the holes that don't feature the Ocean, River, Stream, Gorse, Ravine, etc...better be good holes as well or the course as a whole fails.

I can name a few courses with tons of variety but the holes that do not feature the...
Lake: Great Waters Reynolds Plantation (The lake holes are truly world class but the non-lake holes are pretty bad.
Ravine: Double Eagle Golf (The other holes just don't match the ravine holes)

[Bart Bradley]

I wish that I had deleted this post yesterday...I would have gotten about 10 times as many responses

Bart

[Andy Troeger]

Having a variety of settings can only help as long as the course is also well designed. Its certainly pleasant enough to play a course that plays through a certain type of landscape, but I think having different holes with different types of hazards allows for some interesting differentiation which adds to the variety and memorability of a course. It doesn't have to be something so grand as a lake or a ravine, even a big hill or tree or any prominent natural feature might suffice.

Cypress Point is the best example of this I am aware of--dunes, cliffs, trees, etc. Wolf Run does well with this too, using the water feature on occasion. Both of these courses are wonderfully routed to take advantage of the different areas of the property.

[Adam Clayman]

One fascinating aspect of naturalistic GCA is how much variety can be found within what some may perceive as similar topography. It;s these subtleties that I've found not only help my golf game by being aware of them, but also, the aesthetic is more to my liking.
Give me a meandering stream, versus a full raging river.

The macro elements that Bart prefers are dramatic, and, I suspect much more costly to design around and through. Kapalua likely being the epitome.

[Bart Bradley]

One fascinating aspect of naturalistic GCA is how much variety can be found within what some may perceive as similar topography. It;s these subtleties that I've found not only help my golf game by being aware of them, but also, the aesthetic is more to my liking.
Give me a meandering stream, versus a full raging river.

The macro elements that Bart prefers are dramatic, and, I suspect much more costly to design around and through. Kapalua likely being the epitome.

Adam:

I am not at all sure that I prefer "macro" elements, but I am sure that I prefer a variety of elements...I love the small mountain streams at Grandfather, for example.

Adam, could a case not be made that a wonderful course like Sand Hills lacks variety in the types of hazards and that hazards are one of the key elements in golf course architecture...Isn't it interesting to contemplate that dilemma instead of trying to criticize me?

Bart

[Mark Bourgeois]

Patience, Bart! Sometimes it takes awhile to think on an idea.

Mackenzie and Colt both wrote about the importance of memorability, and variety of what I think you mean as "environment" (as opposed to "terrain") certainly will help with that.  I do think terrain movement (including landforms, natural hazards, etc) is really important to creating a memorable course, with different types of challenges.  But my strong personal preference is for variety of terrain in a homogeneous environment.

Take a links for example.  When the course gets into a different environment it's getting off the linksland, and personally I can't think of a single non-links hole on a links that is remotely close to a personal favorite.  That's even considering that some of those holes would stand up well if placed in a parkland course.

Places like Noordwijkse, Prairie Dunes, Lundin Links, and Cruden Bay all suffer in my estimation.

This seems like one of those issues where there's no right answer, it's just down to preference.

Mark