How do the new ‘links’ courses in Scotland compare to each other?

[David Jones]

Thanks David.
Now I think about it a bit more I seem to recall Tom making the same comment when he was involved in the TV commentary for a while. Good move on TV’s part by the way to have the architect responsible for the course in the booth.
Atb

Completely agree with that. Having Gil Hanse at Winged Foot next month talking about his work would have been great but I assume that the Fox move might make that hard. I'd love it if Sky were to pick him up over here for the event.

[Sean_A]

One thing to keep in mind is courses sometimes need decades to properly soften into the surrounds. Some of that patience is down to getting used to certain visuals, but the hand of man is often blended into a more natural look over time. Lots if not all new courses look overly fussy and just so. To some degree, a place like Castle Stuart or Trump Aberdeen will always have a sense being a bit too perfect because of the deliberate inclusion of views in the design. It could well be that archies are giving golfers too much info about their designs! It's sort of like a magician revealing tricks of the trade.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

One thing to keep in mind is courses sometimes need decades to properly soften into the surrounds. Some of that patience is down to getting used to certain visuals, but the hand of man is often blended into a more natural look over time. Lots if not all new courses look overly fussy and just so. To some degree, a place like Castle Stuart or Trump Aberdeen will always have a sense being a bit too perfect because of the deliberate inclusion of views in the design. It could well be that archies are giving golfers too much info about their designs! It's sort of like a magician revealing tricks of the trade.

Ciao

Sometimes... But Eddie Hackett’s courses immediately looked 100 years old because he didn’t change much....


Now what he did change often looked incredibly obvious, partly because he didn’t have experienced golf course construction crews and partly because the detailing did not seem that important to him.


But the fact remains that with links land, it’s hard to beat a piece of land that has been left untouched for centuries.

[Sean_A]

I think there is room for all sorts of design approaches. I am not wedded to the natural look prevalent at the moment. What's most important is interesting, varied architecture. Making it look good is important, but there is more than one way to skin that cat. This is especially true as we all have different ideas of the ideal. For me ideal land is what Deal and TOC display. Flatish and funky. I am usually not a fan of dune constricted holes or serious elevation change. There are exceptions, but day in and out, I would be happy to play over flatter, more open land with interesting features. I am not at all adverse to the obvious hand of man if it looks cool.

Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

I even take this to the extent of over-styling on links courses. They need to present in an older fashion rather than have the trappings of modernity. That is why I was interested to see how C&C would tackle Coul and it’s why I’m interested to see how Tom tackles St.Patricks.

I played Dumbarnie recently and if you are looking for some over-styling then it would be a good exhibit. Having said that, no-one outside the GCA world I have spoken to who's played it has mentioned it. To a person they have been effusive in their praise.

Yeah, I agree with that. I haven't played Dumbarnie, but I saw it twice during construction, once without grass and once with, and I came away thinking 'This is going to be a fun course but for my taste it is way over-shaped'.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think there is room for all sorts of design approaches. I am not wedded to the natural look prevalent at the moment. What's most important is interesting, varied architecture. Making it look good is important, but there is more than one way to skin that cat. This is especially true as we all have different ideas of the ideal. For me ideal land is what Deal and TOC display. Flatish and funky. I am usually not a fan of dune constricted holes or serious elevation change. There are exceptions, but day in and out, I would be happy to play over flatter, more open land with interesting features. I am not at all adverse to the obvious hand of man if it looks cool.

Ciao

And I’d agree on most sites.


But on a natural links site, any obvious sign of the hand of man (minus a few sod walls in bunkers) is criminal in my book.

[Tom_Doak]

Thanks David.
Now I think about it a bit more I seem to recall Tom making the same comment when he was involved in the TV commentary for a while. Good move on TV’s part by the way to have the architect responsible for the course in the booth.

I got to do that for the two different telecasts and they were incredibly different!


I was on Golf Channel for a 15-minute Q&A segment with the host.  It felt like I was being asked to describe or defend the design.


The same afternoon, I went in the truck with Mark Roe and Rich Beem on Sky TV and just watched play with them for +/- 45 minutes and talked a bit about the course in the process.  Much more natural and relaxed.


I think the US networks consider "architecture" a topic to be discussed separately, and/or they think about it as giving free advertising time to the architect which must be strictly rationed.  So they fail to bring it into the broadcast as just part of the golf.

[Niall C]

I think there is room for all sorts of design approaches. I am not wedded to the natural look prevalent at the moment. What's most important is interesting, varied architecture. Making it look good is important, but there is more than one way to skin that cat. This is especially true as we all have different ideas of the ideal. For me ideal land is what Deal and TOC display. Flatish and funky. I am usually not a fan of dune constricted holes or serious elevation change. There are exceptions, but day in and out, I would be happy to play over flatter, more open land with interesting features. I am not at all adverse to the obvious hand of man if it looks cool.

Ciao

Sean


You've been beating the path of the obviously artificial not being a bad thing necessarily for a while and you got me thinking that way to. I think you originally were referring to CK Hutchison design or something. For me it is a straight stone dyke lining a fairway or a perfectly square/rectangular green benched into a slope. Both look beautiful to me. Certainly better than containment mounding that Ally refers to or dune restricted holes as you term them.


Here's a question; would the likes of Dundonald and Castle Stuart be "better" if they removed the containment mounding ? As much as I like to think that I don't mark up courses for the view, I suspect that I do mark them down slightly because of issues like that even though the holes basically wouldn't change.   


Niall

[Sean_A]

I think there is room for all sorts of design approaches. I am not wedded to the natural look prevalent at the moment. What's most important is interesting, varied architecture. Making it look good is important, but there is more than one way to skin that cat. This is especially true as we all have different ideas of the ideal. For me ideal land is what Deal and TOC display. Flatish and funky. I am usually not a fan of dune constricted holes or serious elevation change. There are exceptions, but day in and out, I would be happy to play over flatter, more open land with interesting features. I am not at all adverse to the obvious hand of man if it looks cool.

Ciao

Sean

You've been beating the path of the obviously artificial not being a bad thing necessarily for a while and you got me thinking that way to. I think you originally were referring to CK Hutchison design or something. For me it is a straight stone dyke lining a fairway or a perfectly square/rectangular green benched into a slope. Both look beautiful to me. Certainly better than containment mounding that Ally refers to or dune restricted holes as you term them.

Here's a question; would the likes of Dundonald and Castle Stuart be "better" if they removed the containment mounding ? As much as I like to think that I don't mark up courses for the view, I suspect that I do mark them down slightly because of issues like that even though the holes basically wouldn't change.   

Niall

Niall

Yes, places like Kington made me think that cool looking is more important than natural looking.  The one excellent aspect of natural looking features is they may be more subtle and thus can be "forgotten" until you get your ass bitten again.  I do, however, agree with Ally that if there is an obvious look for a course which will play well, it doesn't make much sense to go against the grain. That said, these natural courses often go against the grain a bit by sticking in more bunkers than are useful because they are relatively cheap to do so in sand. Sure, they can make the bunkers look good, but if that is possible it is also possible to create other features of interest which balance the design.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

After they’ve been there a while ‘faux’ features, artificial features, manmade features etc tend to look like they’ve been there a long time. And there original purpose may not be what they appear to be intended for now.
For example, some of the hollows at Kington which these days might to some appear as manmade bunkers for the golf course where actually pits dug during previous generations for cock fighting.

Atb

[Mark Pearce]

Kington and Huntercombe are the poster boys for obviously artificial features "built" features (not sand bunkers or historical facets (like the wall at NBWL) being capable of being good architecture.

[Tom_Doak]

Kington and Huntercombe are the poster boys for obviously artificial features "built" features (not sand bunkers or historical facets (like the wall at NBWL) being capable of being good architecture.

I appreciate Kington and Huntercombe as cool golf courses and "good architecture", but I think such features are more accepted on a scruffily maintained course.  I can't think of similar examples in the USA on highly maintained turf and I think it would clash.


One of the unfortunate realities of building modern courses is that our clients (Americans especially) are going to want the turf perfect if they have the $ to do so - and they mostly all do have the $ or they wouldn't be building a course!  At High Pointe I went for a scruffier UK feel and most people thought I was nuts - it didn't sell here. 


You might make it work on a new links, but only in a place like Carne where everyone lets it go because there are limited resources.  But even then, it holds the course back in the rankings, which are often at the forefront of our clients' minds.


I've been trying to split the difference at St Patrick's. . . ground contours play a big role, and there are not a ton of bunkers.  (If anything we may need to add a few bunkers later, but I can't think of many good spots to do so.)  But we really didn't need to build up an artificial green like Kington on land like that, and I think I'd have been roasted by everyone except Sean and Ally if we had.

[Mark Pearce]

Tom,


I haven't played many Seth Raynor courses (in fact, just Yale so far as I'm aware) and my only Langford Moreau course was Lawsonia but don't both of those have in common quite large, obviously "built" features?  Again, both were courses I really loved, partly for that scale of apparent construction (in places).

[Ally Mcintosh]

Like Sean says, cool looking is way more important than natural looking. But one of the best things about links courses is that you can shape in sharp ridges and still have them look natural.


I just don’t see how a MacDonald / Raynor (for example) style on natural links land could ever be better than a well designed, strategic course that uses and is sympathetic with the landscape.


Or how Hackett benched greens ever look or play better than a more natural solution.


Regards containment mounding / framing dunes, I don’t understand how architects can build these on links land and believe they look “natural”. If you have to do that much building, much better to bring the shapes over the whole site, fairways included. Whoever thinks that having smooth fairways with built surrounding dunes ever can look better. Not to mention the broad-leave grasses that usually take hold on built dunes.

[Sean_A]

Scruffy  .  I don't think of Huntercombe or Kington as scruffy, but I think I know what you mean....more natural  ?

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Kington and Huntercombe are the poster boys for obviously artificial features "built" features (not sand bunkers or historical facets (like the wall at NBWL) being capable of being good architecture.

I appreciate Kington and Huntercombe as cool golf courses and "good architecture", but I think such features are more accepted on a scruffily maintained course.  I can't think of similar examples in the USA on highly maintained turf and I think it would clash.


One of the unfortunate realities of building modern courses is that our clients (Americans especially) are going to want the turf perfect if they have the $ to do so - and they mostly all do have the $ or they wouldn't be building a course!  At High Pointe I went for a scruffier UK feel and most people thought I was nuts - it didn't sell here. 


You might make it work on a new links, but only in a place like Carne where everyone lets it go because there are limited resources.  But even then, it holds the course back in the rankings, which are often at the forefront of our clients' minds.


I've been trying to split the difference at St Patrick's. . . ground contours play a big role, and there are not a ton of bunkers.  (If anything we may need to add a few bunkers later, but I can't think of many good spots to do so.)  But we really didn't need to build up an artificial green like Kington on land like that, and I think I'd have been roasted by everyone except Sean and Ally if we had.

No, I would roast you, Tom.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

If new Scottish "Links" include the Castle course, then maybe it's neighbour at St.Andrews Bay, the Torrance and the Kittocks courses could be included, and for that matter also the neighbour to  the Renaissance in East Lothian at Archerfields, the Fidra and the Dirleton courses.