Can you build a course to look old?

[Will Peterson]

So I got to thinking, can you make a course look old (just the look, not a copy of an old course)?  Regardless of the quality of a course, it is rarely difficult to tell if it is new or old.  They just look different. 

Can you build a new course that looks old?  If so, why don’t people?  Old courses are being restore, renovated, and updated all the time, and for the most part, the finished product still shows its age.  People applaud the look and design of classic courses all the time, and most of what are considered the best courses in the country are old.  I personally love old courses.  They just seem to be more fun.

With modern construction, couldn’t you build a new course that looks like a 75-100 year old course?  I realize that there are land restrictions, environmental issue, and a whole plethora of obstacles in new construction, but my question is solely about the look of the course.  The planning, routing, and construction would follow all current regulations and laws.

Without the history and actual age, would a new course that looked like an old course seem to plain?  How would it be received by the golfing public?

I have included some photos of new and old courses to try and illustrate my point about looks.  I am in no way advocating that any of the new courses pictured should try to look old.  I found all of them to be wonderful courses as they are today, and are some of my favorites.  My point being that if I did not include the name and date, you would immediately be able to tell if the course was pre-1940 or post 1980.

Wild Rock (2008-Wisconsin Dells, WI)


Skokie CC (1904, 1914-Chicago, IL)


John's Island West (1989-Vero Beach, FL)


Milwaukee CC (1929-Milwaukee, WI)


Calusa Pines (2001-Naples, FL)


Bigfoot CC (1924-Lake Geneva, WI)

[Bill_McBride]

Chechessee Creek looks like it's been there forever.  One of the things I liked about it so much. 

[Nigel Islam]

I was thinking of something similar today. I like old courses, the quirky holes because of property lines, the huge slopes in greens built for speeds stimping at 8, the old clubhouses, the lack of environmental restrictions. It's almost as if all but the top modern courses are too perfect, and they just come off as similar to me. Of course I've always liked historical stuff so maybe I'm just a nerd.

[Don_Mahaffey]

For a course to look like it has "been there", it has to blend within it's surroundings. That usually means don't tear up all the ground outside the short grass corridor because the native/outer rough/turf edges you plant will never look like what has been there forever.
Don't blow things up and you have a chance, tear it all up and think you can put it all back with the help of "modern" techniques, and you'll get ground cover but you will not get an aged look.

[David_Tepper]

Castle Stuart is a pretty good example of an old looking new course. Some on this board have claimed they have tried a little to hard to do so.

http://www.castlestuartgolf.com/course-tour

[Bill_McBride]

For a course to look like it has "been there", it has to blend within it's surroundings. That usually means don't tear up all the ground outside the short grass corridor because the native/outer rough/turf edges you plant will never look like what has been there forever.
Don't blow things up and you have a chance, tear it all up and think you can put it all back with the help of "modern" techniques, and you'll get ground cover but you will not get an aged look.

C&C are very good at tie ins to the native, it's one of the things I like best at Talking Stick North. 

[Matthew Rose]

I guess a lot of mature trees probably makes it easier.

I like old courses too, for their quirk and for the intimacy in routings.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Yes,

C&C do it vis a vis the grass mix in their greens.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Friars Head was intended to look old when it was opened. A lot of detail in the building of it was to make sure that everything looked natural, old and undisturbed.

[Terry Lavin]

Old Tabby

[Mark McKeever]

Great thread Will.  I've often wondered the same thing.  It seems like new courses try to look new and manicured for some reason (Augusta effect?), where some of these older courses just dont have that same drive.  Boston Golf Club does a really good job of appearing very old despite being a modern course.




Mark

[Josh Tarble]

The key is laying the course gently onto the land.  So many courses built from 1980 and on have tried to force themselves onto the ground and are a very stark contrast with the natural environment.

Old courses didn't really have that option.  I would also argue the very best courses haven't forced themselves onto the land i.e. Sand Hills, Pac Dunes - I haven't been to either, but in pictures they looks they've been around for a long time.

[Tom_Doak]

A big part of it is how you grass things.  If you use bluegrass sod to line the bunkers and/or tees, game over ... that makes even renovation projects on old courses look like the course was built yesterday.  By contrast, if you've got native grasses in the roughs, and you can take the grassing lines seamlessly out to the native, you're ten steps ahead.

Really old courses have all kinds of grasses infiltrating the roughs and even the fairways and greens.  Most new courses attempt to establish "pure" turf.

Also, it's finish work.  When we built High Pointe we left a lot of wrinkles and uneven spots in the fairways, which was considered shoddy work by modern standards ... but they're the same kind of wrinkles that still exist on an older course like Belvedere.  A lot of brand-new courses look like they were just dry cleaned.

[Britt Rife]

I would be interested to know what Pete Dye's thought process was when the owner of The Golf Club gave him instructions to build a course that "looks like it's been there forever."  I wonder if he ever discussed it in interviews or in Bury Me in a Pot Bunker.

[Jud_T]

All you have to do is play Old Mac to know the answer to this question.

[Niall C]

Castle Stuart is a pretty good example of an old looking new course. Some on this board have claimed they have tried a little to hard to do so.

http://www.castlestuartgolf.com/course-tour

Never in a million years would you confuse Castle Stuart with anything other than being a big modern design. It just absolutely shouts modernism from the shaping, the super wide fairways, the huge volume of dirt that's obviously been shifted to the chintzy sleepers used at every opportunity.

If you want to see a modern design that looks as though its been there an age then Renaissance is the closest I've seen simply because it looks as though the course was laid over the land. They will need to narrow the fairways mind 

Niall

[Wayne_Kozun]

I think Devil's Paintbrush does a good job of this as well, with the exception of the railroad ties in some of the bunkers.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

Great thread, thanks Will for launching it.
Let’s make a comparison with building architecture. What makes old churches or castles look old? Providing they are still in one piece and don’t look like ruins, I think it mostly has to do with texture: stone walls just don’t look the same after 600 years being worn out by rain, wind and sun. If you would build an exact replica of Versailles with freshly extracted stones, it just wouldn’t look the same. They probably have done it in China by the way…
In golf, texture effects mostly come from grass and especially in the transition areas: fairway to rough, bunker edges, surrounding of the tees… Different cultivars have to blend together and you can’t really rush that.
We also know that old course have had decades of sand accumulating on the greens from topdressing and bunker outs. In the end it does affect the shapes, but in a very natural way, never brutal. This may also exaggerate some contours which is nice as long as it remains playable.

[Tim_Weiman]

I don't know what or how they did it, but C&C sure made Notre Dame look old very quickly.

[Will Peterson]

Also, it's finish work.  When we built High Pointe we left a lot of wrinkles and uneven spots in the fairways, which was considered shoddy work by modern standards ... but they're the same kind of wrinkles that still exist on an older course like Belvedere.  A lot of brand-new courses look like they were just dry cleaned.

The key is laying the course gently onto the land. 

Old course do just seem to lay on the land with all its imperfections.  Based on Mr. Doak's comment, how would the average golfer react to a brand new course that was built to look old?  The photo below is pretty typical of tee boxes on lots of old parkland clubs across the country.  The tees are just set on some leveled ground.  What would people say if they saw this on a course built in 2013?  Would they think the designer was lazy or the project was short of money to build better tees? 

Knollwood Club (1925-Chicago)


What about green's?  (I don't have a good photo to illustrate)  So many older courses greens just sit on the land.  They don't have framing or mounds (and are better for it).  They might be slight raised or have a bunker or two, but nothing like new courses.  Would people just think it was a cheap course? 

[Jim Colton]

I don't have a picture, but I thought Bandon Trails looked like it had been around a lot longer than it has been. A lot of C&C mentions in this thread.