Art and Golf Course Architecture

There is a relationship between art and golf course architecture that is unmistakable. What I have come to understand is that representations of golf course architecture in the form of drawings, sketches,  paintings, and clay models must take liberties with reality to convey the sense of what is or what will be.

This is my first solo effort at paint markers since my daughter taught me how to do it while we worked on a painting/drawing two days ago. Trust me, she still did plenty of coaching. I look at this medium as just one more method of conveying the message that we  (Suny, Zokol Golf Design) just do things differently. We are intuitive golf course designers.

Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club # 5

An amusing aside, this is where Rod Whitman taught me how to run a dozer. He took two minutes to show me the controls and sent me over the cliff, literally. Perhaps he thought that I wouldn't come back....I did.

Another Medium to Express Golf Course Architecture

My daughter is teaching me how to paint with markers. We worked on this together. I think I helped and she insisted that I also sign it. If you have been following the blog, you know that I started drawing this year after 40 years of not drawing. It's a way for Suny, Zokol Golf Design to convey our design ideas. And by the way, Zokol also can draw and sculpt. I don't see this as art in the sense that it isn't Josh Smith but it does work to convey a sense of the vision. We feel that drawings, clay models, and paintings convey our ideas better than Photoshop, CAD and topographical maps. Is this a sign of our Luddite tendencies? Maybe we are advocates of Neo-Luddist Golf Course Architecture.

#4 Green and Nicola Lake

Maren and Armen Suny

USGA Recognizes Sagebrush for "Firm and Fast"

USGA Video on Sagebrush

In the video link above from the 2010 Golf Industry Show, the USGA identified Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club as an example of "Firm and Fast" golf course conditioning. Richard Zokol, PGA Tour player, club founder, and designer, had the foresight and vision to create Sagebrush five years ago. His goal was to create links playability in the mountains of British Columbia. The golf course was designed to be playable, engaging and aesthetically appealing, all while embracing the ground game. We are all proud of the golf course (Golf Digest's Best New Canadian Course for 2009) and the way that Superintendent or  rather, Keeper of the Green, Norley Calder has implemented the maintenance strategies to provide these conditions.

Contrary to popular belief, Firm and Fast conditions can be created on any soil type unless the region is subject to unusually high rainfall. Sagebrush is built on a silty soil. The construction was crafted based upon the maintenance regimes that were going to be required to provide the playability goals.

The Masters, My one and only trip to Augusta

In 1989 or maybe 1990, I was fortunate enough to get to go to Augusta for the Masters. I had a wonderful experience and was fortunate enough to do some things that the average fan wouldn't ever get to do. The golf course was far different than I had expected. It was an amazing piece of ground and in those years it was far more open than I had expected. And those greens had more slope than any greens I had ever seen.

Market Your Course Designer- Score Golf, Rick Young

Score Golf Market Your Course Designer by Rick Young

The Blog Post link above is an interesting article by Rick Young, which I have a different opinion on. Rick quotes Terry McAndrew's Web Street Golf Daily Pulse. Golf Daily Pulse cites marketing data from The Golf Research Group's research suggesting that Top 10 golf designer's projects are more successful than other designers based upon golf course valuation.  

Those of you that have been following this blog understand that I tend to do my own thinking. Below is my response to Rick Young's article.

Is Golf Business an Oxymoron or a Regular Moron in Golf Attire?

It's easy to look back at golf's build-up prior to the collapse and wonder what were they thinking. How did the golf business get to this point? Obviously, this recession has affected businesses across the board and there will be no bailouts for golf. But there is more to Golf's economic free fall than easy financing and a market downturn.

People got into the golf business because times were good and the golf business is sexy. Sexy, you may be shaking your head but think about this, you are at a cocktail party and there is one fellow that owns at a mini-storage warehouse that is extremely profitable and another fellow that owns a golf course that loses a million a year, which fellow will get chatted up the most? A golf course and or development owner will really draw a crowd if he has used a "big name" to design the course. So, we have people that got into the business, that may have had only a cursory understanding of the golf business based upon playing the game and possibly having been on the board at their club and we wonder why our industry crashed.

Richard Zokol Interview- Toronto Golf Show on Golf Course Design

Zokol Interview

Richard Zokol, 2-time winner and 25 year PGA Tour veteran, has some prescient thoughts on what's wrong with golf and where Golf and Golf Course Design are headed. To view the Zokol interview, click on the link above.

 Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club

Golf Digest's Best New Course

Canada for 2009

Zokol is a partner in Suny Zokol Golf Design.

40,000+ hours on Great Golf Courses

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called "Outliers". One of his contentions in the book is that to become competent in any given vocation or profession that you must spend 10,000 hours in your chosen field. I must be slower than most people because it took me over 40,000 hours spent on great golf courses before I became comfortable with my own instincts about Golf Course Design.

There are those in the Golf Design business that talk about how they have "studied" and are "students" of the great golf courses. Their studies have consisted of reading about the course, the architect, looking at pictures,  possibly plans, and a single or several trips to the hallowed ground to play golf. It has always struck me as sincere although incomplete and naive to assume that one can garner much more than the gross strategy and a general sense of a great course in such a short period of time and course of study.

Consider some additional methods to learn more about golf course architecture from a different angle. It takes time at great courses:

*Spend one week on the same course, a month, a year
*Do golf course setup, you may call it changing cups but when done well, its daily design
*Watch thousands of variously skilled golfers play the same course and holes
*Look at the golf course forward and backward day after day
*Look across golf holes and at areas between  and around holes and how they relate
*See the course before the sun comes up, at sunrise, sunset, or after dark, in the moonlight
*Look at contours from shadows created by headlights, you won't believe what's there
*Watch a downpour, where the water flows, and how fast
*See how the snow settles on the course and melts
*Watch the golf course during a wind storm, see what blows where
*See shadows at different times of the day and year
*Look at the golf course as the leaves fall from the trees and the how the shade changes
*Smell the dirt, good soils smell better than bad soils
*Look at the course when its completely dormant or browned off for over-seeding
*Shovel up bunker washouts, fix bunkers on the spot with hand tools and without a master-plan
*Watch tens of thousands of golf shots hit, land, and roll on every part of the course
*Roll balls on every green repeatedly every day and watch the ball roll, exposing all of the contours
*Learn from the people that were responsible for protecting the integrity of these courses, if any are left
*Playing shouldn't be ignored but if you are a skilled player try some shots from where less skilled players may have to play from


Hopefully, it won't take others the 40,000 hours at great golf courses that it took me to feel comfortable with golf course design. But surely, it takes more than a few rounds to learn about a great golf course. Spending significant time on great golf courses has exposed me to many of their subtleties and nuances, while developing a very different and varied perspective on golf course architecture.

Italian Grape Hoes

Quite a few people have asked me the significance of using Italian Grape Hoes to finish bunkers. It's a little bit like the old adage: if you have to ask how much something costs you can't afford it. With the Italian Grape Hoe, if you have to ask why its a better tool to finish bunkers with, then you have never used one.

The Italian Grape Hoe (IGH) has a heavy sharp blade 7-8 inches wide, depending on the manufacturer, and 10 inches high. It typically comes with a handle that is 5 feet long.

With the IGH, when finishing, renovating or edging bunkers, one always works from within the bunker. One simply chops down and pulls back a chunk of what ever material is being worked. It is at least twice as fast as using a shovel. As you can tell by the photo above, the IGH has a curved head, so it allows you to easily create the "right" angle on the edges of the bunkers, even when working on steep faces.

The first time that I saw or used an Italian Grape Hoe was at Merion Golf Club in 1980 when we did a lot of renovation/restoration work on the bunkers prior to the Open. Apparently, they had been using them since Flynn was the Head Greenkeeper and Joe Valentine was the Construction Foreman. When Flynn left, Joe Valentine took over as Head Greenkeeper and then Richie Valentine took over as Superintendent. I was Richie's Assistant in 1980 and 81.

In a future post, I'll describe "chunking" to make repairs and create features in bunkers, another original technique from the early days that was handed down to Valentine and from him to me.

Golf Architecture's Definition of Insanity

Is anyone other than me shocked and amazed at the number of and extent of changes made to new golf courses and renovations shortly after they open? Many golf course architects just keep making changes, trying to get things right. They appear to be practicing golf architecture. How many times does it take to get it right? As a golf course superintendent I spent a lot of time fixing suspect golf architecture. As a golf course architect I spend a lot of time making sure that we get it right the first time.

Perhaps owners and clubs should ask architects vying for design and renovation work, how many changes and how extensive those changes have been on completed projects. Recently I spent some time on a relatively new course by a "name" architect. After the golf course opened, numerous changes were made and more planned.

We've all heard the definition of insanity- Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Golf Architecture's definition of insanity is- Hiring the same Architects over and over again and expecting a different result- getting it "right" the first time.

Another Drawing