Is Scale over valued

[BCowan]

Caledonia is an example of modern day small scale.  Played it 20 years ago and loved it then.  Was  on around 100-110 acres

Yes.  That was a tiny piece of land, and Mike Strantz did an amazing job with it.


It won no awards.  Then he built Stonehouse, a much inferior course on 3x the acreage, and it won the GOLF DIGEST Best New award.

Excellent post.  Stonehouse was a big downer, wished I'd played RNK when I visited VA. 

[Michael Felton]

All that said, it would be churlish to criticize some of these modern classics because of the use of scale when
the property is begging for this kind of use and so many fine products are the result.  There is room in the world for all sorts and styles of courses.

I don't disagree with your first sentence ... "some" of them had to be at a big scale, and others have searched out property to match it.


But you don't see nearly as many new courses as I do.  Nearly everything now is big or bigger.


What I'm observing is that there isn't room in the world anymore for new courses like Woking or Royal Worlington & Newmarket or Merion.  They just aren't big enough to please the Masters of the Universe who play golf today.

Hi Tom,


Do you think anyone would use the plot of land that Winged Foot occupies to build 36 holes today? Or would they use it to build a "large scale" 18 holes?


I always think of Bethpage Black as being a good example of a large scale course. The holes are pretty well spread out, but it's very walkable. I'm very happy for courses to be built on a large scale, but only if they remain walkable. If not, you're losing something.

[Tim Martin]

All that said, it would be churlish to criticize some of these modern classics because of the use of scale when
the property is begging for this kind of use and so many fine products are the result.  There is room in the world for all sorts and styles of courses.

I don't disagree with your first sentence ... "some" of them had to be at a big scale, and others have searched out property to match it.


But you don't see nearly as many new courses as I do.  Nearly everything now is big or bigger.


What I'm observing is that there isn't room in the world anymore for new courses like Woking or Royal Worlington & Newmarket or Merion.  They just aren't big enough to please the Masters of the Universe who play golf today.

Hi Tom,


Do you think anyone would use the plot of land that Winged Foot occupies to build 36 holes today? Or would they use it to build a "large scale" 18 holes?


I always think of Bethpage Black as being a good example of a large scale course. The holes are pretty well spread out, but it's very walkable. I'm very happy for courses to be built on a large scale, but only if they remain walkable. If not, you're losing something.

Michael-I think that's the rub in a nutshell. A course like Yale though grand in scale has an intimacy with green's right next tees and very walkable. A lot of the modern stuff requires a three hundred yard cart ride from green to tee and while certainly not a great walk(if even possible at all) any intimicy is gone. Scale is a double edged sword and Ben's example of Caledonia is a great one of doing more with less. I would use Wannamoisett as another that sits roughly on 100 acres of land where Ross knocked it out of the park.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Winged Foot sits on 280 Acres, probably a bit small in an age where the typical course, on core property, takes 180-200.  27 holes would probably be considered the best fit.  Land requirements have gone up, not only due to more length, but more width being considered "standard."  Some old courses have the center of the green about 100 feet from center of the adjacent tee. Now, that would be at least 150' to the back, and 175-200 feet to either side, for example.  Part is more knowledge about how far the golf ball can go astray, part is fitting cart paths in!


While greens and tees are generally sited further from each other, there would probably not be 300 yard cart rides.  Those are what you see in either housing courses or hilly property, and sometimes to get around environmentally sensitive areas.


As to the OP, scale reflects the site.  If building in wide open plains, or next to an endless water body, features do seem like they need to be bigger or they look puny in the broader context of nature.  If in the woods, where every hole is basically an enclosed space, features should generally be smaller to look right.


That said, the basic size of greens themselves hasn't changed much since the early days in America, or even late 1800's in GBI, varying from 6-8K SF, usually.  Yes, they grow in over time, but one of the old dead guys wrote that "greens need not be overly large" and then cited either 8 or 9,000 SF as the right size.  In reality, USGA greens and tight budgets keep those below 7K these days, but the size of the bunkers and what not have gotten bigger.


However, there are still some visual composition rules that apply. For example, except in rare cases, I find that a bunker extend that is more than the width of the green away from the green simply looks too big, and not connected to the green.  I think we have all seen green complexes dominated by bunkers.  Now, sometimes, a huge bunker works, but there are many 1980-1990 courses where huge bunkers dominate on every hole, somewhat losing their effect, especially as the surrounding real estate gets built, trees grow, etc. and the scale of the surroundings comes in.

[Peter Pratt]

I agree with Ben that scale is overvalued, and my favorite courses are a mix of big and small scale. Just played Kapalua (Plantation) in a 3-4-club wind and I can't imagine it being any fun if it wasn't built on a huge scale. The property and the wind have a lot to do with the kind of course that works best.

[Tom_Doak]

As to the OP, scale reflects the site.  If building in wide open plains, or next to an endless water body, features do seem like they need to be bigger or they look puny in the broader context of nature.  If in the woods, where every hole is basically an enclosed space, features should generally be smaller to look right.

I'd like to point out the most significant example to the contrary.  Most links courses in the UK are on "wide open plains," but they do not have large bunkers that would suffer from lots of wind erosion.  The bunkers are mostly quite small.  The reason they don't look out of scale is because the architects didn't care so much if you saw them at all, and the golfers of the day didn't demand perfect visibility.  So you don't see them very well until you are almost right on top of them ... and from there, they are perfectly in scale 

[Peter Pallotta]

I've never thought of that!


Needless to say, the architects back then didn't have to worry about drone shots either.


No wonder few really even try to replicate the original/great links land courses - i.e. we can't not know what we know, and can't un-see what we've already seen.


Today's golfers, based on the thousands of images we've seen in print and tv, all have a clear image/idea of what the 'right' scale for bunkers is.


Imagine the work in trying to 'educate' them to accept a small almost hidden hole in the ground on a wide open seas side course

[jeffwarne]

one day we'll value and build (or keep) courses that "play" right, rather than courses that "look" right

[Ian Andrew]

I believe there has only been a handful of designers who can handle working in a grand scale. I find simply increasing the size of everything - more often than not - has led to a very dull golf course. Most are missing the elements that bring things back to human scale with detailing. It still needs to be relatable for the player to work. There's a point where too wide or too big is simply overwhelming and meaningless.


All of the biggest misses I've ever seen out of modern day architects - from guys that I think are pretty solid - come when they have gone for something grand and impressive. Everything they "could do" at a smaller scale was lost in the immensity of the product. There must be a reason why ... you can't just go big because you feel like it.


It's not over-valued.




p.s. We're a little over-due for something far more intimate with smaller intricate detailing.

[Jeff_Brauer]

OF course, part of the big scaling of bunkers came from building them with dozers rather than horses.

[MCirba]

Yesterday a few of us played Willie Park, Jr.'s Rolling Road Golf Club, just outside of Baltimore which was built on 94 acres.

Without having much time to weigh in on the basic question of this thread, I would simply say there was far more interesting architecture and terrific golf holes (as well as a few perhaps overly quirky ones a detractor might say) on the property than there is at, say, Longaberger, or The Virtues I believe it's now called, which is built on a sprawling property of probably several hundred acres.   

It was also probably the longest 6174 yards of golf I've ever seen due to factors that make Merion East also play much longer than it's card yardage (i.e. par 70, some very short par threes and fours and some very long ones).   

[Jon Wiggett]

IMO a good course should fit the landscape it sits in so scale is in essence a given at any particular site.