Golf's Ground Game versus Minimalist Aesthetics

Ground Attack Encouraged

A Suny Zokol Golf Design Master Plan Rendering

Faux links playability has taken over pop golf design culture. When you see some wild looking golf course with fescue waving in the air, you just believe that you will be getting a links experience. A true links experience is one that not only accepts the ground game but often calls for or even demands it to gain an advantage, while penalizing the air attack with some degree of regularity.

A Suny Zokol Golf Design Master Plan calling for the Aerial Attack

And it's always been interesting to me that a minimalist and or links looking golf course is generally assumed to be firm and fast and receptive to the ground game, purely on how it looks. Minimalist golf and the ground game are not necessarily mutually inclusive. There are many examples of great looking rugged golf courses that show all of the signs of being links like in playability but the design has greens perched up in the air and running approach shots simply cannot be played...these greens still require an aerial or conventional approach. Mind you, these course may be great but are they as receptive to the ground game as they could be or should be if they are purported to be links?

Every time you raise another green up to that dramatic site as you route the course you become less accommodating to the ground game. I don't think that we should avoid all elevated or "up" green sites but we shouldn't default to the easy drama every time either.

So the next time you play a purported links course, think about the courses receptiveness to running ground shots. Is it links golf or is it faux links?

Renderings by Maren Suny

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