I must admit that there are times I wonder if we are talking about Designing a Golf Course or Sculpturing the land which also might accommodate a golf course either now or sometimes in the future. It seem shard to realise that there is a golf course there and it’s not simple down to artistic or should I say Sculpture licence. I know that I am regarded as out of date or a traditionalist, playing my home country courses. What I seek is well provided in GB&I yet I smile when I see so many of you and others travelling to GB&I to play our golf. Why are courses like Brora, Dornoch Moray, Cruden Machrie Askernish, Crail, Elie, Bridge of Allan, Blairgowrie Wee Course so popular with overseas visitors. It will has nothing to do with sculpture or arts and craft but they are the result of land selection, and course design, greatly hidden ideas in our modern era.
The wise and all knowing architects from the WW2 have deemed to push us towards the super manicured and pretty cottage images normally reserved for chocolate box covers. To be crude the modern course design should be regarded as a stretched Pitch and Put course but pushed to some 8,000 yards long. The land and hazards have been regulated as of no consequence, hazards not required on the fairway due to the long hitters, no longer any real need to think when you walk on to a golf course apart from hitting long balls and for island Greens hitting them straight. Sorry guys but do you realise you are slowly killing the game, it will not be carts soon but motorised bath chairs. Golf is fun but you need to think, have a clear de-stress mind to fully enjoy the experience, the last think we need is a real estate maze of a golf course where you only have a hope of surviving if you ride a cart with GPS. Come on make us think, give us choices and let us navigate around the course, testing our skill or keeping as close to Par as possible. Choices Guys because being a big hitter does not always refresh the minds of the majority of golfers.
Is the current period since WW2 the Dark Ages of GCA, No, not quite IMHO but many have pushed hard on this envelope. Yet to be fair to the designers they follow their clients wishes which in turn reflect Joe Public wants and due to the ‘Lets Make it Easy Society’ golf has been dulled by carts and aids, so the general golfing public in their defence don’t seem to know what they have lost.
The point here Guys, yes you Designer and Architects, are you interested in GOLF, have you got the best interests of the game at heart, if so then you need to reinvent yourselves, utilising good design practices, modern technology to minimise the disruption to the land and the construction of the course, be far more critical to the land chosen by your clients, be brutally honest, if its crap, tell them. Like Doctors you have a duty to the course not the golfer, too many courses have come into this world knowing only that they are the product of a savage rape of the land, Traumatised by the destruction, they never seem to blossom into good let alone great course.
Flowery description perhaps but you have seen the result of these nondescript courses, starting with general apathy then slowly tickover with no real direction in life due to their unchallenging nature.
Just an opinion
Melvyn