Are tree lined fairways/holes an inherent architectural impediment ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Do tree lined holes create a "similarity" in the holes that tend to mute any distinguishing features ?

Do they contribute to making every hole look like every other hole ?

Do the features/holes at Firestone suffer due to the "framing" provided by tree lined holes ?

[Matthew Essig]

No.

Sometimes.

Absolutely yes.

[cary lichtenstein]

I grew up on tree lined fairways I never knew there was anything else. We all carried 1 irons to punch out and  advance the ball out as far as possible. Half my time was spent in the shade under the trees.

I love the alternative, sooo much room for creative shot making

[Jud_T]

Pat,

Aside from potential width issues for higher handicaps, I think elevation changes help quite a bit aesthetically.  Check out Belvedere GC or Kingswood in NH.

[Mark Pearce]

I'm struggling to think of a great, or even very good, hole that I have played where trees define the limit of the playing corridor.  Trees lining the course but at a reasonable distance from the semi-rough can be attractive and give a course character.  The occasional hole where the playing corridor is bounded by trees can be fine(there are a couple of examples at the Berkshire, where on most of the holes the trees are lining the course but are not defining the limit of the playing corridor) but as a feature of a course I would agree that tree lined playing corridors is an impediment to architecture.

[Sean_A]

Its very rare that I think a tree-lined fairway is the optimum presentation for a hole.  Even then, I think only tree-lined on one side, or if two, the corridor is so wide its effectively only one side, is a rarity for best presentation.  I despise tree-lined fairways as much for the green wall look (fails to highlight the really attractive trees), lack of interior views and safety failure (yes, I feel safer when I can see other golfers!) as I do for playability/strategy concerns.  People think distance is the bain of the game, I say unchecked vegatation (trees, grass, gorse, and general crap) is the true bain of golf.  

I think my response answers the first two questions, don't know about the third.

Ciao

[Dave Greene]

Yes
Yes
Yes

[Ed Oden]

Ross designed my home course with a bunch of subtly doglegging holes on a largely treeless site.  Many years of plantings and resulting growth created tree lined fairways.  Over time, those trees changed the playing corridors ever so slightly so that the gentle doglegs of Ross' design were lost and the holes effectively played straight.  It took a restoration removing countless trees and reinstating bunkers to create the width necessary to allow fairways to weave as originally intended.  So yes, trees can definitely impede or alter golf course architectural.  Our course is now far better and more interesting than before (not to mention in better condition).

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ed,

Sometimes tree lined fairways create a blended effect where it's difficult to distinguish the holes.

Someone recently commented to me that they couldn't recall the individual holes on the South course at Firestone unless you prompted them, yet, they recalled every hole on the West course in detail.

[BCowan]

Ed,

Sometimes tree lined fairways create a blended effect where it's difficult to distinguish the holes.

Someone recently commented to me that they couldn't recall the individual holes on the South course at Firestone unless you prompted them, yet, they recalled every hole on the West course in detail.

Pat,

   Did the person say it was the trees that caused the blended affect?  I haven't played Firestone, but don't many of the holes go back and forth?  I think back and forth causes blended affect with the common core golfer.  An example would be a non GCA core golfer criticizing the back nine at Inverness with 13-17 going back and forth (the holes don't come to them right away).  With the holes having each its own character on the back nine but a back and forth routing.  What they overlook is #3 and #5 are the exact same green and shot from 200 yards and in but a non back and forth routing with different topo.

[Adam Clayman]

George Thomas said it best.

[mike_malone]

For me the biggest problem of tree lined fairways are trees planted parallel to the line of play after the design of the course. When these trees eliminate the recovery options that were designed into a hole they must go.
  The golden age designers used bunches of existing trees to create doglegs which obviously recognize how trees can be part of creating not destroying options for play.

[Tom_Doak]

Do tree lined holes create a "similarity" in the holes that tend to mute any distinguishing features ?

Do they contribute to making every hole look like every other hole ?

Do the features/holes at Firestone suffer due to the "framing" provided by tree lined holes ?

Tree lined holes can start to look alike, but especially if you do a bad job of choosing what to leave.

It's ridiculous to me that some people would take a site in a forest and think they had to cut down all the trees to build a good course.  18 holes without trees can suffer from the same "similarity" as 18 holes lined by trees on both sides.

The key is to mix things up.  Most courses cut from trees are repetitive, because the owners have tried to clear only the minimum amount, instead of trying to create a varied landscape.  And most courses where trees are planted become repetitive, because if left unchecked, committees tend to plant in every available space, which leads to the same thing.

As much as possible, one should avoid parallel holes separated by trees.  If you're stuck with that, sometimes make the clearing two holes across [or even three!] instead of one.  

Try to work on diagonals, or leave the trees tight along one side and very wide to the other side.  Highlight the fine specimen trees [if there are any], use them as features, and remove all the clutter around them.  Create longer views on the interior of the course; look for chances to open up behind the green.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ben,

The fellow commented that the trees overpowered the terrain and architectural features, making the holes indistinguishable from one another.

When asked about holes by number he couldn't recall them, they had to be described to him, including how he played them, in order for him to recall their specifics.

As to back and forth, when a hole is flanked on both sides by trees, routing direction gets lost

[Kerry Gray]

I think its about scale and space. If the trees lining the fairways don't overly restrict options they are fine. I think of Banff and Jasper in Canada, several holes are lined with trees but don't restrict options or recovery shots except for really poorly played shots. Occasionally they define the right or left side of the hole and I am fine with that as well.
I love those holes personally, the feeling of isolation and serenity when you cannot hear or see anything else but the hole you are playing.

[Joe Bausch]

Do tree lined holes create a "similarity" in the holes that tend to mute any distinguishing features ?

Do they contribute to making every hole look like every other hole ?

Do the features/holes at Firestone suffer due to the "framing" provided by tree lined holes ?

Tree lined holes can start to look alike, but especially if you do a bad job of choosing what to leave.

It's ridiculous to me that some people would take a site in a forest and think they had to cut down all the trees to build a good course.  18 holes without trees can suffer from the same "similarity" as 18 holes lined by trees on both sides.

The key is to mix things up.  Most courses cut from trees are repetitive, because the owners have tried to clear only the minimum amount, instead of trying to create a varied landscape.  And most courses where trees are planted become repetitive, because if left unchecked, committees tend to plant in every available space, which leads to the same thing.

As much as possible, one should avoid parallel holes separated by trees.  If you're stuck with that, sometimes make the clearing two holes across [or even three!] instead of one.  

Try to work on diagonals, or leave the trees tight along one side and very wide to the other side.  Highlight the fine specimen trees [if there are any], use them as features, and remove all the clutter around them.  Create longer views on the interior of the course; look for chances to open up behind the green.

Now that's a post that makes me glad I read this site!

[Carl Johnson]

Ross designed my home course with a bunch of subtly doglegging holes on a largely treeless site.  Many years of plantings and resulting growth created tree lined fairways.  Over time, those trees changed the playing corridors ever so slightly so that the gentle doglegs of Ross' design were lost and the holes effectively played straight.  It took a restoration removing countless trees and reinstating bunkers to create the width necessary to allow fairways to weave as originally intended.  So yes, trees can definitely impede or alter golf course architectural.  Our course is now far better and more interesting than before (not to mention in better condition).

Another plus, in my mind, is the opening of vistas over almost the entire course.  Kerry Gray, above, says: "I love those holes [lined with trees] personally, the feeling of isolation and serenity when you cannot hear or see anything else but the hole you are playing."  I am just the other way around.  I like the openness and being able to see vast stretches of the course at one time, either filled with other players, or not.  Part of it is solely an aesthetic choice, but I also think that seeing the surrounding landscape into which hole "A" is placed gives one a better sense of the lay of the land on hole "A" itself.  Some might argue that's a negative -- gives the player too much information, making the hole easier.  I look at it as giving the player who uses that information an advantage over one who does not.

To be fair to Kerry, he is speaking specifically of certain holes at Banff and Jasper in Canada.  I've played Jasper and seen a small section of Banff.  My faint recollection of Jasper, at least, is that it does have a somewhat open feel overall, though located in the middle of the forest, so Kerry and I might not be that far apart.

Finally, to my mind a challenge is how do you prevent tree creep on a course that's been opened up, so to speak?  "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if we added just one tree here?"  And then, "Why not a couple more here?"  Adding trees makes us feel useful, like we're actually doing something.  And before you know it, you're back to where you started.

[Dave Doxey]

Taking the other side of the debate - my view as a player (I’m not an architect!) is that trees function as just another type of hazard in defining the play of a hole.  They can add interest, or be overdone, just as water, native grass, ”environmental areas” etc.

Shade & encroachment issues are a different matter, but well-designed holes with trees can be interesting.  Like anything else, when overdone, trees can be detrimental. 

Narrow corridors through trees can add interest and actually combat the “bomb & gouge” style of play. I occasionally play a course that lacks distance, but has a few tight holes through trees.  Once I learned to play the right clubs to stay in the corridors, instead of blasting driver, the holes added interest.  If I were to plan a match against a long-hitter, I'd play it on that course.

I prefer areas with trees that have short grass under them, allowing recoveries, to areas of tall grass or bushes, (or water!).

Nothing beats the early morning sound of a golf ball hitting a tall pine tree trunk, followed by the exclamation of its owner.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Taking the other side of the debate - my view as a player (I’m not an architect!) is that trees function as just another type of hazard in defining the play of a hole.  They can add interest, or be overdone, just as water, native grass, ”environmental areas” etc.

Dave,

The problem with your side of the debate is that more often than not the architect did not plant the trees, green committees did.
Ergo the club compromised the original design with the addition of trees.

Shade & encroachment issues are a different matter, but well-designed holes with trees can be interesting.  Like anything else, when overdone, trees can be detrimental. 

Narrow corridors through trees can add interest and actually combat the “bomb & gouge” style of play. I occasionally play a course that lacks distance, but has a few tight holes through trees.  Once I learned to play the right clubs to stay in the corridors, instead of blasting driver, the holes added interest.  If I were to plan a match against a long-hitter, I'd play it on that course.

I prefer areas with trees that have short grass under them, allowing recoveries, to areas of tall grass or bushes, (or water!).

There's where the inherent conflict lies.
Grass needs sunshine and trees shade the area beneath them

Nothing beats the early morning sound of a golf ball hitting a tall pine tree trunk, followed by the exclamation of its owner.

As his opponent, that's music to one's ears.

[Dave Doxey]

Taking the other side of the debate - my view as a player (I’m not an architect!) is that trees function as just another type of hazard in defining the play of a hole.  They can add interest, or be overdone, just as water, native grass, ”environmental areas” etc.

Dave,

The problem with your side of the debate is that more often than not the architect did not plant the trees, green committees did.
Ergo the club compromised the original design with the addition of trees.

That's encroachment on an existing course.  My point is that I believe that trees (even corridors) can be used effectively in initial design.

Shade & encroachment issues are a different matter, but well-designed holes with trees can be interesting.  Like anything else, when overdone, trees can be detrimental. 

Narrow corridors through trees can add interest and actually combat the “bomb & gouge” style of play. I occasionally play a course that lacks distance, but has a few tight holes through trees.  Once I learned to play the right clubs to stay in the corridors, instead of blasting driver, the holes added interest.  If I were to plan a match against a long-hitter, I'd play it on that course.

I prefer areas with trees that have short grass under them, allowing recoveries, to areas of tall grass or bushes, (or water!).

There's where the inherent conflict lies.
Grass needs sunshine and trees shade the area beneath them

I didn't mean perfect, fairway-quality grass,  having sparse grass, pine needles, & even hardpan, is better than alternatives.  If the trees have lower limbs removed, wooded areas can be playable.

Nothing beats the early morning sound of a golf ball hitting a tall pine tree trunk, followed by the exclamation of its owner.

As his opponent, that's music to one's ears.

[Dave McCollum]

I have mentioned before the use of trees as strategic features at my course.  The property was settled by a visionary pioneer who planted orchards to provide fruit for the miners in the mountains.  He also planted Lombardy poplars along roads, I guess, to “civilize” the sagebrush landscape and act as wind breaks.  This was 130 to 100 years ago.  When the course was designed, some fruit trees were left and several groups of specimen poplars on the inside turns of doglegs, protecting some angles to greens, shade on tees, etc.  The poplars had an important role in how the course was played as narrow but very high vertical hazards.  They are very fast growing trees, but, as we have learned, do not have long life cycles.  Since they are all about the same age, they are all at the end of their useful life, and all dying at the same time.  Every big wind, we lose a few more. 

For us at least, we’ve seen the disadvantages of using trees as important strategic features a hundred years down the road.  We are not Pebble or Augusta and can’t just replace them with mature substitutes.  Nor do we want to because they aren’t indigenous to the landscape despite their historical significance.  We’ve done a masterplan for a renovation that reroutes and significantly changes the course so that trees will have almost no impact on play other than shade and comfort.  Now, if only I could figure out a way to pay for it and use the many ideas I’ve learned on this site and my travels.  We’re sand-based, so I’m convinced we could turn this good, little local course into something worth traveling to play.  Our landscape is pretty spectacular and unique.

To go further OT, why should a fun, little, affordable local course do such an ambitious renovation?  It seems very risky as a business proposition and will certainly change our character.  There aren’t a lot of compelling reasons other than it would be a very creative and cool project and a great legacy for the next generation of golfers.  It could also saddle the owners with so much debt that the business is no longer sustainable.  For us this is a “put your money where your mouth is” sort of problem, not an abstract discussion about architecture.  I’ll leave that to you guys.

[Tom_Doak]

I have mentioned before the use of trees as strategic features at my course.  The property was settled by a visionary pioneer who planted orchards to provide fruit for the miners in the mountains.  He also planted Lombardy poplars along roads, I guess, to “civilize” the sagebrush landscape and act as wind breaks.  This was 130 to 100 years ago.  When the course was designed, some fruit trees were left and several groups of specimen poplars on the inside turns of doglegs, protecting some angles to greens, shade on tees, etc.  The poplars had an important role in how the course was played as narrow but very high vertical hazards.  They are very fast growing trees, but, as we have learned, do not have long life cycles.  Since they are all about the same age, they are all at the end of their useful life, and all dying at the same time.  Every big wind, we lose a few more. 

For us at least, we’ve seen the disadvantages of using trees as important strategic features a hundred years down the road.  We are not Pebble or Augusta and can’t just replace them with mature substitutes. 

Dave:

So, if you'd built the course from scratch, would you have taken down those mature trees, or used what you had to work with, even knowing it wouldn't last forever?  That's the real debate from an architect's point of view.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TD,

Or, be aggressive in preparing a long term tree management plan.  I always get funny looks when my plans show planting young trees generally below the existing trees, rather than filling every available gap, as seems to have been done at too many courses.

Pat,

Out of curiosity, do you feel the continuous and expansive prairie at say, Prairie Dunes of Sand Hills, creates a sameness?  Do five holes in a row with ocean at Pebble get boring as too much the same?

It seems we like natural courses, and using nature seems to come up with most courses being somewhat repetitive, or having a theme, as prairie, wooded, parkland, mountain, seaside links, etc.  As long as different courses get varied landscapes, I can handle some that are too much of each, in the name of having a sense of place.

I will say that one of my few critiques of Shadow Creek in Vegas was they brought in the forests, but seemed as if each hole had approximately the same corridor width.  I might have proposed a few open holes for more variety.

[Dave McCollum]

Tom, that’s an interesting question.  The simple answer is yes I would have used the trees.

The long version follows, if anyone cares.

I always liked the way the trees were used.  Much has changed as the original nine holes evolved to 18 over the last 40 years.  More importantly, I’ve evolved as well from a young guy that didn’t play much golf to a geezer who is obsessed by it.  What got me interested in architecture is the realization that many components of a golf course have a shelf life (and the repairs being made to out 40 year old irrigation system).  If we have to upgrade the irrigation and dig up the golf course, we might as well consider other changes at the same time.

As I started reading about courses and learning about great links courses, I was struck by some things we had in common.  We have this sandy soil that is essentially useless for farming.  We’re in this natural canyon that was originally treeless except for the cottonwoods along the river.  The rest was rock and sand and sagebrush.  All of the trees were imported and sustained by irrigation.  We saved some fruit trees and used them in the design, so you can literally eat apples, pears, cherries, and berries as you play.  The deer and critters eat the rest.  The poplars were used strategically on about 8 holes.  We have other trees as well, planted by a tree loving pro for safety and aesthetics.  He actually forbid the maintenance people from removing any tree, although many, in my opinion, don’t serve a purpose.  Many are invasive.  I try to remove as many of these as we can.  Shade during this part of the year is a useful purpose, so I’d leave some of them.  I just wouldn’t rely on them as much as vertical hazards.       

I was marginally involved in the original design and did make some decisions based on preserving and using the trees.  If I were to start today from scratch, knowing what I know now,  I’d be much more devoted to making a course that blended into the natural beauty of this rugged, dramatic landscape.  It is our principal asset.  Rather than trees, I’d use bunkering and waste areas as transitions into the native and even bring more native areas into the course.  I loved the way you did this at Rock Creek.  I have said that few courses sit so naturally and gently upon their landscapes as RCCC, IMHO.  Trees are a natural part of that landscape and you used them magnificently.  So are the rocky open spaces of sagebrush on native ground, the rock outcroppings, etc.  This is a tough, rocky site.  I can’t imagine what natural features got bulldozed away clearing it for golf.  A lot were used, so we can live with that.   

I took our architect to the very beautiful and quirky Blue Lakes CC just across the river.  I really like the course and think many here would enjoy playing it.  My purpose in showing him around was to show him what I didn’t want.  Rugged and natural, fast and firm, rather than manicured and lush.  I don’t think our golfers would be very supportive of my tastes in design, so I keep my ideas largely to myself.  However, if done right and we put it in the dirt, they would love it eventually.  There would not be a course in our region very much like it, not even the one next door. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

TD,

Or, be aggressive in preparing a long term tree management plan.  I always get funny looks when my plans show planting young trees generally below the existing trees, rather than filling every available gap, as seems to have been done at too many courses.

Pat,

Out of curiosity, do you feel the continuous and expansive prairie at say, Prairie Dunes of Sand Hills, creates a sameness? 

I think the distant "horizon" creates a different sense/perception versus nearby flanking trees.
Holes where the horizon is the flanking feature tends to bring your eye back to the features on the hole being played
 

Do five holes in a row with ocean at Pebble get boring as too much the same?

No, see the above explanation.
In addition, the topography on those holes is DRAMATICALLY different.
No one is going to confuse or blend holes 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

It seems we like natural courses, and using nature seems to come up with most courses being somewhat repetitive, or having a theme, as prairie, wooded, parkland, mountain, seaside links, etc.  As long as different courses get varied landscapes, I can handle some that are too much of each, in the name of having a sense of place.

I will say that one of my few critiques of Shadow Creek in Vegas was they brought in the forests, but seemed as if each hole had approximately the same corridor width.  I might have proposed a few open holes for more variety.

I wouldn't disagree with that, but, you have to remember what the site looked like prior to the introduction of the golf course.