Odd, Creative, Strategic, Innovative or just plain Strange

[Bryan Izatt]

Here's an aerial I tripped across.  A course with 18 holes - every one of which has two greens.  Note the y shaped par 3 hole in the centre right.  Or the centre line trees on the hole across the bottom.  Is this a creative way to handle hole length without moving the tees back? Is all this creative architecture?  Or, just plain strange?

[Mike McGuire]

could the intent of the second green be a temporary green? One to use if the main one needed maintenance.

[Ron Farris]

It is Japanese architecture originating from high humidity in summer making it difficult to maintain bentgrass. So they decided to have two greens

One green korai zoyziagrass and one green bent.

[Jeff Doerr]

Wow! I'm guessing I've never heard of the architect before.

I've always liked the idea of multiple tees and large greens with two flags on a 9 hole track, but this is wild.

[Brian_Sleeman]

Gotta be a lot of free drops due to hitting it on the wrong green (either intentionally or unintentionally).

[Tom_Doak]

There are literally hundreds of courses in Japan which still have two greens per hole.  Usually it's a korai green and a bentgrass green, but in Sapporo I saw a course with two bent greens side by side on each hole.

Legend has it they got this idea from an American general who was stationed there just after WW II, who told them that's how they dealt with high humidity on his home course in Georgia.  I've never confirmed whether this was common on courses in Atlanta seventy years ago.

[Mike_Young]

There are literally hundreds of courses in Japan which still have two greens per hole.  Usually it's a korai green and a bentgrass green, but in Sapporo I saw a course with two bent greens side by side on each hole.

Legend has it they got this idea from an American general who was stationed there just after WW II, who told them that's how they dealt with high humidity on his home course in Georgia.  I've never confirmed whether this was common on courses in Atlanta seventy years ago.

Tom,
A few in Atl did have such greens many years ago and I think the original 9 at Fort Benning was that way....bet that was his home course....

[Bryan Izatt]

As I got to looking at aerials of other courses in this area around Chiba, it became obvious that it was not an uncommon approach in the neighbourhood.  Summer and winter greens.  I guess scorecards have distances to each green on each hole.  Or winter/summer scorecards.  I'm guessing they'd have to rate each set of tees and greens.

Do any of our architects here have any experience building one of these two greens per hole courses.  What unique challlenges do they present?  Twice as difficult to design strategy into the holes? Would it cost more to design?  The supers must have fun dealing with two different stands of grass to maintain on the greens.

But, I'm sure that like all things Japanese the presentation is lovely.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

Tillinghast designed the Colonial Golf Club that was built in 1928-29 in Atlanta. Unfortunately when the stock market crashed in November of '29 the bonds floated to finance the club failed and it went belly up by 1930.

Each hole had two separate greens with Bent grass on one and Bermuda on the other. The course was over 7,000 yards in length and was created to try and host the Open in the south.

In addition to the greens, another unique feature was that there was NO ROUGH whatsoever.

Several years later, the city of Atlanta would open the Bobby Jones Golf Club on the exact site. Research is ongoing to try and locate the drawings of Colonial to see how much if anything was included in the municipal course that is still open for play today.