Some questions of land acreage required...

[Brett_Morrissy]

to route & construct 18 holes.

I know this is going to be a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' and that courses, fairway widths, hazard sizes, green sizes and complexes are all widely variable, as well as special consideration to infrastructure for irrigation, etc

- BUT I am fascinated by construction, routing and the planning process and would get your thoughts on it.

Can we assume a proposed golf course project with an average 6,000 to 7,000 yard golf course, and assume the vegetation is of a uniform nature: i.e. either all dense forest, or sparse forest, or rolling dunes, gorse, a rock filled valley or even desert or pasture for that matter.

Is it possible to estimate the area required to route the holes ?

If you were to clear all the forest to a new Bandon Trails site - what would that area measure? How much treed area would you need to clear?
If you were to measure all the cut grass at Sand Hills for it's 18 - what would it measure?
A sand covered desert -how much area would get turfed?
Before construction, if you were looking at Rock Creek, (I haven't seen it) and lets assume that the entire area is covered in similar rock - in planning, how would you estimate the amount of rock to remove or turf over(!) ?
Thanks
BM

[Mike Nuzzo]

Brett
We have 80 acres of irrigation at Wolf Point - fairways and greens - noting else is irrigated - no practice facility.

[Brett_Morrissy]

Thanks Mike, so total hole acreage area is only 80 acres, I would have thought it to be heaps more than that

[Adrian_Stiff]

Brett - You are right with your piece of string but, an acre is a piece of land near as dammit 70 yards by 70 yards. 70 yards is quite a good width for a playing corridor so with no waste 7000 yards divided by 70 is 100 acres. Probably you need to add 5 acres for Clubhouse & Car Park, service and Road, another 10 for a practice ground.
With land prices rising we may need to golf on smaller parcels.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I've seen a fairly decent course on 69 acres...

The smallest land parcel for a good course I've seen is maybe on 90 acres...

The smallest land parcel for a great course - I don't know - Maybe Merion at 120 acres?

Given sympathetic topography and the shape of the land parcel, most people would want 150 acres.

I've seen a course struggle to fit in 300 acres.

I've just visited a course where there was so many planning restrictions, they struggled to get the best one out of 800 acres.

I think Tom Doak has said that when given the 2,000 acres (?) he had at Rock Creek, it made it all the harder to find the good holes because there was so much to choose from.

[Brett_Morrissy]

Thanks Adrian & Ally

In discussing those 3 courses of 150, 300 & 800, what is the number 1 defining issue, is it routing or something else?

I am assuming if you need tranquil kind of thing, then you need space between them.
But, original query was how forest do you need to clear, Ally, I am assuming again that they didn't clear 800 acres?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Brett,

If you have a densely forested site and the budget to clear trees in three passes, then you might start with a 6m pass along the hole centreline, followed by a 30m pass, followed by the final pass which will vary in width to include specimen trees and to stop an unnatural looking straight tree line... Guess this might average 75m... This all depends if you're big on trees and want to keep them framing every hole. Someone might want to clear the lot.

There are people who can answer this question better than I though.

Ally

[Mike Nuzzo]

Clearing trees is easy if you have a good operator or two and you can burn them.