I recently did not get an assignment with a club in the south of England called Hayling Island, a very nice and understated Simpson designed links course in low dunes on a coastal island. It has some of the best Simpson greens I have seen, very subtle and beautifully fit in the landscape. For pics of the place see:
http://www.golfarchitecturepictures.com/Web%20Galleries/England/Hayling/index.htmlI decided to put some of the work I did in the last two years I was trying to get the job on this forum for two reasons.
The first reason has to do with sharing and feedback. Since I now am not bound by any client confidentiality, which often is the case when you land an assignment, I can share some of the details of a typical project facing an architect on a classic course with this forum and at the same time get some feedback of this group here on what they like and not like about these plans.
The second reason has to do with credit. I do not mind losing assignments, we live in a competitive world and we are so much the better because of it. However in this specific case I am concerned that some or most of my ideas might be used without the public realizing what the origin of the ideas has been. This has happened to me before on another project in the Netherlands, and I would like to make sure it does not happen again.
So let me start this exercise by putting up an aerial map of the course.
The course is a single loop of 18 holes, it starts by winding its way westward from the clubhouse, and after some detours reaches the most westerly point of the course at hole 13, after which it returns back to the club house in quite a linear fashion. There are a few issues with the routing. First it starts of with a par 3 hole, without any clear need of why its starts of with a par 3. Second the location of the clubhouse, which is relatively new and was built on this new location some years ago, is such that to get to the first tee you have to make quite a detour around hole 18. Third the club has a cramped driving range, a poor putting green and no good short game practice area. Finally and maybe most important, the land on which holes 1,2,17 and 18 lie are some of the least exciting land the club has, whereas more superb land is available further west that currently isn’t used.
Furthermore the current hole 8 has problems in that its green is prone to being very wet given that in lies in a low dune valley. The current green location also makes it difficult to make the next hole, the ninth, a good hole since it blocks the logical valley through which one can play the hole.
Finally the 13th is a famous hole, which has been dumbed down over the years, by making the fairway narrower, removing the large blow-out bunker to the right of the fairway and moving of the tees (see an article about this hole in the last Golf Course Architecture Magazine).
The solution to many of these problems could be achieved with a relatively simple and not to costly rerouting of the course, shown in the routing plan below:
The first step is to try to start and finish the round at the level of the current club house. This is achieved by starting the course at the current second hole, keeping the current first hole as a spare par 3 hole (which is also very useful for maintenance purposes) and as a practice hole. Second holes 17 and 18 are combined into a par 5. This also achieves that the new holes 1 and 18 traverse the less interesting land as quickly as possible with two fairly long par 5 holes.
However we now need two extra holes to get back to 18 holes. Also we need to see if we can solve the problem of holes 8 and 9. This is achieved by abandoning the current hole 8, and creating two new holes in its place, first a par 4 in a natural valley along the edge of the fence surrounding the site playing towards the green of the current par 3 11th hole, followed by a new par 3 playing from a dune, over a valley to another dunes next to the green of the current 8th hole. Both these holes can be constructed with virtually no moving of soil because the land they would lie on is so suitable. This then also enables to play the 9th hole through the logical valley, which now has become possible because the old green of hole 8 isn’t used anymore.
That leaves one extra hole that still would be needed. Here an existing par 3 hole that currently is not in use between holes 14 and 15 comes into play. By reinstating this hole, either played along the line of hole 14 or perpendicular to this direction, which has become available because we have moved the tee shot of hole 9, and we now have space to build new tees on or close to the beginning of the old fairway of hole 9.
Finally we also make changes to hole 13, by widening back the fairway to the right side, drawing players away from the dangerous left side where walking people and parked cars are dangerously close to the current line of play, and by reinstituting the large blow out bunker in the carry.
The old green of hole 18 can be used as a chipping green and in the area between this green and the new 18th green a new putting green can be constructed.
These changes require 3 new greens, a number of new tees and some new fairway areas, so the costs of doing the work are not very large, in my view yielding benefits that outweigh the costs.
Furthermore there are a number of areas where I recommended work to the club:
Restoring the bunkers back to Simpson's style . The bunker style of Tom Simpson is very recognizable (see picture below). This bunker style unfortunately seems to have been lost at Hayling GC sometime after the war (an aerial picture of 1946 in the clubhouse clearly has the Simpson style bunkers still visible), with all the bunkers on the course now being riveted. Bringing back these “lace edged” Simpson bunkers should in my opinion be a high priority of the club since it will both restore an historic element and make your course blend in better with its surroundings and more beautiful.
Create more areas of short grass around greens. Although the club has some areas with short grass around many greens, there is even more scope to expand these in specific places.
Try to grow more heather. On many of Simpsons courses heather plays a crucial role, both as a hazard and as décor. Having heather at a seaside links course is even more special, with only Ljunghusen in Sweden being another good example of a links course with heather. Although heather will not grow in all areas of the course an effort should be made to establish it around some of the bunkers.
Make the fairways wider at relevant places. One of the clear trademarks of a classic strategic golf course by Simpson are the wide fairways, however on a number of holes the fairway are now cut rather narrow. The effect is to make the course less strategic and more penal, causing the course to be harder and less fun for the average player and more one-dimensional and less interesting for the better player.
Hide the tees better visually in the landscape. On some holes the beautiful green sites are somewhat spoiled by the tees that are behind it. This issue in general can quite easily be improved by camouflaging the tees and their straight lines, in this case for instance by some earth movement and the application of rough sods.
I hope this was somewhat interesting, should you want to download the full resolution version of the rerouting to have a closer look at it and do your own analysis and/or rerouting you can do so at:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10772736/Hayling%20Masterplan%201b.pdf