Is it just me, or do the golf courses feel bigger in the U.S.?

[Joey Chase]

I ask this question, because I truly feel this way.  And I'm not talking about length of a course, any knucklehead can build a course 7,500 yards.  It's more about the playing corridors and width.  It seems rare to find a big course in scale.   In saying this, I am not talking about the British Isles either.

[Ronald Montesano]

It's interesting but still too general for me to make a comment. I'd like a bit (no pun) of expansion in your assertion. Might you specifically compare courses in the USA and outside the British isles?

[Mark Bourgeois]

It's just you.

[Joey Chase]

Ronald,

I guess I'm talking more specifically about courses in continental Europe.  Valderrama, Sotogrande, Oitavos Dunes, Vilamoura, Royal Zoute, St. Germaine, Fontainebleau to name a few of the bigger more well known and loved courses just don't have the same scale as places like Bethpage, NGLA, and so many more.  In my home state of Wisconsin alone there are a half dozen courses that at least feel bigger than any courses I've played in Continental Europe.  Of course there are exceptions, but they seem to be few and far between.  Then again, like Mark says, maybe it's just me.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Good post. I find that many people generally refer to the vertical (e.g. big dunes) when talking about scale. Whereas it's all about the horizontal and how that fits. Many courses in Britain and Ireland are fairly small scale in this regard. Europe too. Big generalisation of course.

[Ronald Montesano]

The biggest course for features (my perception) I've ever been on is Yale. From the carry on #1, the enormity of the first green, the large bunker left of the second green, and on and on. Yale feels enormous.

Look at the hole that won MacKenzie the Country Life contest. It's no wonder courses feel enormous if we insist on multiple playing corridors on a single hole.

[Joey Chase]

Ronald, that's my point.  Why do courses like Yale and National only exist in the U.S.  Sure, you could say that it's because Macdonald/Raynor only worked in the U.S.  Why didn't anyone transport that size and scale to Europe?

[Sven Nilsen]

There is a long history of efficient use of land in Europe.  In the U.S., only in certain parts of the country are we concerned about taking up too much space.

Different cultures, different attitudes towards how land is used.

[Niall C]

Would the age of the courses not have something to do with it too. If the majority of courses in an area are say smaller in scale and built way back and then perhaps new courses in the same area, especially if designed by a local architect, might be built to a similar scale.

Niall

[Gib_Papazian]

Joey,

What you are responding to is the quality of intimacy endemic to most of the courses across the pond. Even Sunningdale feels a trifle nudged together in spots, which matches my Lilliputian impression of the U.K. countryside. It is like everything is a visceral extension of a leisurely drive through the Cotswolds; a series of quaint villages and scaled-down cottages dotting the landscape around hilltop steeples.

Nothing feels jammed together mind you - just laid atop the landscape in a sensible scale, without the necessity to express a grandiose expression out of proportion with the surrounds. It does seem like most American courses stretch out with plenty of elbow room, which matches our national ethos of taming vast open spaces of land.

The quintessential example of British golf would be Swinley Forest - elegant, cultivated and refined, a nearly perfect work of strategic art without a single extraneous brushstroke. Too often we confuse quantity with economic quality - as if the club and architect of these overblown monstrosities are trying to counteract a feeling of nouveau riche inferiority.

I'm not sure if I've recounted this tale before, but in 1997 - dragging my seriously pregnant wife all over England - we were trying to cobble together a game plan as we'd decided beforehand to simply fly into Heathrow with a London hotel reservation and nothing more, preferring to make it up as we went along; an American walkabout with no preconceived ideas or objectives.

We had brought a large laminated map of England and had unfolded it across a wooden table in a Knightsbridge pub. We had a short list of places we really wanted to visit in England and aside from two courses in Surrey, I was trying to figure out how to work the route around my invitations to play Hoylake and Woodhall Spa.

Up saunters this cherub, middle-aged Brit holding a pint of bitters with a cheeky smirk. He introduced himself - I think his name was Neville - and asked if he could be of some assistance. Happy for the help, I explained that we were wandering around England for the next two weeks and had no real plan.

Neville pointed to a small group across the room and told us they were "cycling enthusiasts." Thinking they were overweight bike racers, I laughed and pointed out they were hardly dressed like they had been peddled to the pub. He went on to explain that in England, "cycling enthusiasts" ride motorcycles, which looked a lot more likely given the beer pot he was sporting over his waistline.

Over the next half hour, he traced a route for us that took us west to Bath and eventually made a counter-clockwise circle that brought us back to London through York, Lincolnshire and Cambridge - where I suffered through three hours of King Henry the 8th, which pretty much cured me of Shakespeare forever.

I did think it was odd that Neville kept referring to this cathedral and that cathedral as being a "must see." At one point I asked him what was so interesting about this particular church and he said it was not especially beautiful but he thought we would like it because of its impressive size. I gave him a quizzical look and with a crooked smile, he said: "Well, in America, "big" is its own justification, isn't it?"

That little jab - obviously Neville could not resist - might just sum up why courses seem bigger in America. That is because for the most part, they are. "Big" is its own justification here, often irrespective of whether it makes sense from an artistic or maintenance perspective.

We thanked him and went back to our cheesy Pakistani hotel to gather everything for our adventure - that suddenly had a series of destinations. I had rented a Mini Cooper, which turned out exactly the right size car to tool around all those country lanes. The mileage was outstanding and there was still plenty of room for a pregnant lady to get in and out. Sometimes, small is its own justification too.    

[Gib_Papazian]

It just occurred to me after getting a PM on the subject, that Chechessee Creek communicates the same visceral economy of scale and elegance as Swinley - which would not be out of place in Surrey.

[Tom_Doak]

It's the size of the equipment used to build the courses, too.  In the U.S. (and in Asia) we tend to use giant earthmoving machines.  In Europe, they tend to build more with excavators, which can work in a much smaller space.

I built all of the greens at High Pointe with a D-3 bulldozer.  Most of our jobs now, the boys are on D-6's.  I'm amazed how precisely they can shape with such a big machine, but even so, the scale of the undulations tends to be different, because with the bigger machine's power it's easier to make bigger sweeping contours.

[Joey Chase]

  Tom, It's funny you say they build a lot with excavators in Europe.  When we built a course in Portugal we used an English contractor to build the features.  Everything they did was with an excavator.  In fact they wanted to spread the sandcap material with an excavator.  They had some really good operators, that's for sure.  I actually enjoyed shaping greens with smaller bulldozers, although you could get the work done fairly quickly with a bigger one.

  I visited The European Club a while back if, for no other reason than to meet Pat Ruddy.  He described shaping a course with an excavator going down the middle of the hole and shaping from the inside out with it, only using a small dozer to clean it up in the end.  It seemed like a fairly unusual way of doing it.

Gib, some of my favorite courses are set to a smaller scale.  They, like you say, give a sense of intimacy.  Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better.  They can be big courses, scale wise, and yet not be on a lot of land.  Take a place like Merion, it is on a very small property yet in no way feels small to me.  So I guess I don't necessarily buy the idea that we are more wasteful with the land in the U.S.  That may be true, but doesn't get to the point of scale on a course

[Gib_Papazian]

Joey.

To restate your question: Is it just me, or do British Isles golf courses have more content in terms of micro-scale featuring?

It has always seemed to me that American courses are long on sweeping features and - for lack of a better term - a more masculine look.

Across the pond, my impression is there is more attention paid to clever, seemingly innocuous little details that would normally escape notice until you find yourself having to figure out how to negotiate them. Like a little dog that gets hold of your pant leg and ends up tripping up a birdie into a double bogey.   

 

[Joey Chase]

Gib,
You are hitting the nail on the head with that.  I agree that the majority of golf in the U.S. lacks the smaller details that can set up a great golf hole.  When I think of the majority of the modern courses in the U.S. I think they are long, big, and broad.  Does this contribute to the majority of American golfers not necessarily getting what we talk about every day on this site?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

The clubhouses, practice facilities and even car parks at some of the US clubs I've visited contribute to that bigger feel. Somewhere like Winged Foot with its two courses, vast clubhouse is huge. NGLA feels incredibly spacious. On the other hand I felt The Creek and Meadow Club were pretty compact. I didn't play Chicago or Beverly, but I visited them both and they seemed to be on smallish sites, and, of course, square or rectangular. I noticed a number of Chicago area courses as I flew in and out of the airport and most seemed to be laid out on a regular geometric plot. I felt very at home at Merion - there was an Englishness to it. Pasatiempo felt compact, too. Ridgewood's gestures were large (and its clubhouse).

In Britain a lot of golf clubs are old, late 19th or early 20th century. For intimacy, those Scottish courses that start and finish in the town are hard to beat. Royal Liverpool was felt to be too small to accommodate all the vast infrastructure of the Open until they were able to negotiate the use of the municipal course over the road, and acquire neighbouring properties. Even Royal Birkdale (which feels spacious) depends on being able to use the grounds of a neighbouring school in order to host the Open. The front nine at Woodhall Spa feels spacious and the views out over the flat landscape (and the enormity of the bunkers) contribute to that feeling. But when you get in the trees from about the 13th onwards it all feels very constricted. The clubs we at Wilmslow play matches against are all pretty compact, Prestbury, Delamere Forest, Warrington and so on. We must have one of the smallest dining rooms for a club with 600 members and once the first 25 players have turned up the car park is full and you have to park by the groundsman's sheds across two fairways. Our practice ground is quite spacious but it remote from the course.

Other compact courses in Europe that spring to mind: Royal Zoute, Royal Belgique, Hilversum, Hamburger, Morfontaine, St Germain, Fontainebleau, RGC des Fagnes.

And a few European courses that feel spacious: Royal Co Down, Kennemer, Winston Links, R Sart-Tilman, El Saler.

It's G&T time so I must depart.

[RJ_Daley]

Joey or Mark;  have you gentlemen been to some of the newest or modern era courses getting attention in GB&I.  Joey mentions Valderama (sort of new era in an RTJ sort of way) and the European Club.  But, what about your assessments of Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, and Renaissance Club.  What scale factor do you attibute those courses to compared with a grander scale you are identifying modern and some classic U.S. design?

FWIW, it makes the most sense to me in considering this question to follow the line of thinking regarding the sized of the construction equipment shaping characteristics, leading to either broad sweep frequency of contour or more micro nuanced shaping. 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I've seen Kingsbarns, but not played it. I have not been to Renaissance or Castle S. I have played Trump Scotland. The common factor at Kingsbarns and Trump is that each hole is a separate entity - occasionally you catch glimpses of players on other holes, but the experience is rather like RCD or Birkdale in that each hole is in its own playing zone. They certainly feel big, although I can not think of any American comparison.

I have little experience of resort golf in Southern Spain or the Algarve. I haven't enjoyed my experiences there, but that is more to do with the tasteless environment and the presence of uncouth holiday golfers (mostly from the UK) and their drunkenness and general lack of breeding. I suppose my Algarve favourite was the old Vilamoura because it's actually quite British running through avenues of trees, affording privacy between adjacent holes. I quite admired San Lorenzo's design in its versatility, ticking the playability boxes for 20-handicap golfers while affording serious alternative set ups (particularly pin positions) for professionals (who don't seem to have played there). But the vulgarity of its surrounding housing was sickening.   

I played the old Wentwood Hills Course at Celtic Manor before it was substantially altered and partly subsumed into the course used for the 2010 Ryder Cup. I am probably unique among GCA contributors who have played it to have enjoyed the experience. It certainly had grand gestures and felt enormous. The lowland holes by the river brought a sense of Florida to this bit of Wales, while the upland holes seemed imported from the Alps. This was one of the landmark courses built in the 1990s. Others included East Sussex National (Cupp), Hanbury Manor (Nicklaus II), Chart Hills (Faldo), London Club (Nicklaus), Carden Park (Nicklaus), the Oxfordshire (Rees Jones), Wisley (RTJ II). They have the trappings of the American country club - bag drops and drinks trolleys - but none of them imposes itself on you in the way that Wentwood Hills did and also , to an extent, St Mellion (older). On each of these courses you are very much aware of the boundaries of the property. In golfing terms I think I would happily go back to Chart Hills, but not in preference to nearby Rye or RCP (or Littlestone, for that matter).

Our grandest clubhouses are Moor Park and Stoke Park, which can keep up with the big American clubs for size, style and comfort. But Stoke Park is quite a compact course - I remember it when it was just another members' club no different from nearby Beaconsfield or Burnham Beeches (all quintessentially English). The big course at Moor Park, however, does feel spacious and grand - but not at all American (whatever that may mean). And I suppose it is in the clubhouse that most British clubs feel smaller than American country clubs. We don't have ballrooms, few have tennis courts, we certainly don't have carriage driving days, and I'm not aware of any with skating rinks. In the old days you changed your shoes in the car park, you certainly didn't bring the family to the club for the whole of the weekend, and food consisted of Welsh rarebit or a bacon sandwich. I can't think of a grill room in this area other than Mere - which is run like an American country club and can seat 500 for dinner. At Wilmslow the men's locker room has 6 showers and two lavatory cubicles, certainly no club or shoe cleaning facilities, yet it is one of the major clubs in a very wealthy area - look at the Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Bentleys in the car park.

There was one comparatively spacious newish course that seemed to me to be on the American scale - Portal, a Donald Steel design in a very rural part of Cheshire. It was developed by a farmer who sought to get out of agriculture. Unfortunately the economy went downhill and the farmer committed suicide. His legacy was an expansive course with enough space between fairways that even the wildest golfer couldn't stray onto a neighbouring fairway. They had intended to build a clubhouse/hotel with spectacular views at the highest part of the course, but the suicide and economic downturn killed that idea. Instead they squeezed in another nine holes on the main site (the original course was on either side of a minor road) and suddenly it became tight and badly routed, with a somewhat despised nine holes remaining on the other side of the road. How are the mighty fallen?

   

[Joey Chase]

R.J.  
I have been to Kingsbarns, Renaissance Club, and Machrihanish Dunes as far as the newer courses in Scotland.  They were all very different.  Kingsbarns was a bigger course to me and felt more manufactured than any other course I've played in Scotland (maybe because it was?).  Renaissance is a really great golf course, not at all the manufactured feel of Kingsbarns.  It was the first course I've played with pure fescue greens.  It is very much in perfect balance scale wise to me in that it doesn't ever really intrude but doesn't feel dwarfed by it's surroundings.  Machrihanish Dunes was wild and very rough around the edges as it had only been open a few weeks when I was there.  It is on a large property, with the same stretch of wild dunes as it's much older neighbor.  Although, I would play Machrihanish 9 to 1 to the newbie.  They were forced to be minimalist in their work there and it does feel small to what it could've been.

It is true that the newer courses are on a bigger scale than the older courses in Europe.  But why are there so many older courses in the U.S. that are grand in scale.  Did C.B. Macdonald set a precedent in building NGLA that started the U.S. on a path to bigger, bolder courses?  Do the permitting restrictions imposed force some of these courses to be contained in size?  

I was thinking about the fact that so many of our cities in the U.S. are big in scale and size.  In Europe, the buildings are more in harmony with the land than loaded with skyscapers, even the streets are smaller.  Do the environments around the courses have an influence as well?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I'm just watching Riviera on television. It doesn't seem so vast, despite its clubhouse and some of the surrounding housing, but with those tiny greens and treacherous run offs it reminds of this side of the pond. Different grasses, of course. The aerial view makes it seem very compact and utterly surrounded by housing.

[RJ_Daley]

Mark, I think Riviera is a one-off in this regard.  It is a big-time golf course in an intimate setting.  I've only been there once, but I'd say that not only the intimacy is created by a surrounding high ridge, or call it the siting along an arroyo -or whatever the Californians call that sort of geographical feature- with palms justaposed with Sycamores, and the green wave-over long elaborate bunkering,  and mansions sighted above almost every hole up on the ridges, just puts it in a completely different category, IMO 

Joey, I have no frame of reference about European golf courses as I never played there.  But, when you mention environmentalist influence on the feeling of big expansive courses here, I wonder if the Audabon awards that courses seek in the US for the last couple decades as a bit of buying environmentalist credibility, doesn't play into the 'feeling' of more expansiveness.  By that I mean that there is has been a big push to deal with rough areas, and areas of separation between fairways along the routing whereby many 'native' plantings have been introduced.  Many native prairie creations have been placed where once unremarkable wooded or undergrowth had been.  Once the more native prairie and grassland restoration takes place, that tends to open up the views, and enhance the feel of a more grand or expansive venue. 

[Tom_Doak]

Joey or Mark;  have you gentlemen been to some of the newest or modern era courses getting attention in GB&I.  Joey mentions Valderama (sort of new era in an RTJ sort of way) and the European Club.  But, what about your assessments of Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, and Renaissance Club.  What scale factor do you attibute those courses to compared with a grander scale you are identifying modern and some classic U.S. design?

FWIW, it makes the most sense to me in considering this question to follow the line of thinking regarding the sized of the construction equipment shaping characteristics, leading to either broad sweep frequency of contour or more micro nuanced shaping. 

RJ:  I think Kingsbarns is certainly built at the bigger grander American scale; I think that's why some Scots still speak of it as an American-style course even though the links turf conditions are spot on. 

I would also say The Renaissance Club is at the bigger American scale -- not quite the same as Kingsbarns, but having a client who wanted a 7300 yard course certainly contributed to that, and so did having to clear so many trees from the site and re-grass those areas.  Easier to grass it as fairway than as "native".

I haven't seen Castle Stuart yet.  Of course, all of these were not only designed by Americans but also DEVELOPED by Americans, which has an influence on the scale.  A Scottish client would never think of spending that sort of money to build a golf course, and that would scale things back.

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

There are quite a few clubs that have such vastness in both Australia and South Africa.  Royal Joberg is on a very big property.  Most see this week's tournament course and Durban CC which are on very economically used peices of property.

[Sean_A]

Gib is right.  Most UK courses are on small bits of land compared to US courses.  I can only guess that guys like Colt thought 115 acres or so was plenty of space to build a 6200 yard course with a sensible clubhouse and parking lot.  It really stands out when one visits a sprawling clubhouse in GB&I whereas in the States they are tons of this sort. 

I was thinking about scale in England for hilltop courses - properties with expansive views which increases the sense of scale.  For instance, Kington feels like a small course plopped onto a a fairly small site, but yet without boundaries.  Compare this to Cleeve Cloud, the course feels massive and without boundaries. There is very little in the way of features (man-made or not) to break a scene, including rough and other vegetation besides grass.  This is quite unique in England.  Then you come to a course like Painswick and it feels claustrophobic in comparison - more claustrophobic than many urban courses with tight boundaries. 

Ciao

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Stourbridge Golf Club in Worcestershire has a 6,200 yards golf course on only 93 acres (which I assume includes clubhouse and car park). I don't know the course, but a glimpse at Google Earth suggests there is even room for a good number of trees. I think Guinness Book of Records listed it as the most compact golf course (in the country? in the world?).