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

Sagebrush- One of Canada's Best

Golfweek's Best: Canadian Modern 2012

Note: Courses built since 1960

Location

Opened, Architect(s)

Avg. rating

1. Devil’s Paintbrush

Caledon, Ontario

1996 Dana Fry, Michael Hurdzan

7.67

2. The National GC of Canada

Woodbridge, Ontario

1979 George Fazio, Tom Fazio

7.58

3. Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club

Quilchena, British Columbia

2009, Rod Whitman, Richard Zokol and Armen Suny

7.58

I spoke today with Rod Whitman and Richard Zokol and we are all honored by this recognition. We built what we thought and believed was "good and right" for golf and hoped that golfers would appreciate it. We purposefully ducked some of the easy drama and focussed on providing golf that was immensely enjoyable for lesser golfers while providing both intellectual and physical challenges to the best of players.

Zokol...Sagebrush in the Rear View Mirror

All good things come to an end. The good thing this time is Richard (Dick) Zokol and Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club. Dick will no longer be affiliated with Sagebrush. Sagebrush was Dick's baby, he chased the dream of bringing great golf to Western Canada for over a decade before Sagebrush was hatched. His vision and astounding resolve were the only reasons that there is a Sagebrush and now, it's over.

Zokol Sketch of 17 and 18 at Sagebrush

This sketch by Dick was his first attempt at using charcoal and pencil.

Clay Model by Zokol

Dick also does clay models for our clients.

I spent the last couple of days with Dick and the future is bright. Anyone that knows Dick will know that he is always working on something...

Our design company, Suny, Zokol Golf Design continues on with active renovations and Master-plans.

Root Development on Non-USGA Greens

In the past, I have railed against the USGA green construction method (USGA Greens and The Emperor's New Clothes) as being a mistake and founded on poor assumptions. The reason for this is simply that I have never believed that their construction method would grow better grass or provide better putting qualities than some other methods. Additionally, USGA greens will cost more to build and maintain, while possibly leading to more leaching of nutrients and pesticides into drainage-ways than some other construction methods.

The pictures below were sent to me from Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club's Superintendent, Norley Calder. Sagebrush is a Whitman, Zokol, Suny design, built with a non-USGA green construction method that I developed to achieve a superior low maintenance, low input putting surface. Norley has these greens running at 11.5 feet on a daily basis with a single cut and no rolling while being irrigated once every 7-10 days during the hottest summer weather. Sagebrush's green roots may be one and a half feet deep and these non-USGA greens may be the best putting surfaces in all of Canada.

Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club Spring 2011

How deep do these roots go?

USGA greens typically have their deepest and densest roots in their first full year and by year two, the root depth is reduced to seven or eight inches maximum with much less mass. Conversely, greens built with sound agronomic principals get better with age and rooting gets better from year to year, not worse. Pictures don't lie and neither do roots!

Sagebrush Post at Now on the Tee

Now On The Tee blogger, Matt Bosela, has yet another great post on one of his trips to Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club last year. Matt has taken some great photos of the course before and here are some more.

Now On The Tee- Sagebrush Post link 

#5 Bunker

 #9 Green

 #14 Second Shot

Below are pictures of Matt's group playing the second hole at Sagebrush. In the first picture you can see that his playing partner's approach shot has a very challenging angle and that he must carry the ball to most pin positions. In the lower picture, Matt must have hit the ball into the right side of the landing area's valley and got the better kick and better angle for his approach shot. The shot from there can be played on the ground or in the air. If the pin is anywhere on the back or left side of the green, then the ideal approach is from even further right than where Matt's ball ended up after rolling out 60 or 70 yards.

Aerial Attack

Ground Attack

More great Sagebrush posts from Now On The Tee

Now On The Tee- Sagebrush part 1

Mow On The Tee- Sagebrush part 2 

Golf Architecture's Forgotten Course of Study- Golfers

Golf Course Architects are missing the single-most important facet of golf course design- golfers. Golf Course Architects have typically had a defined course of study that includes studying landscape architecture, reading books by and about golf architects and golf course architecture, along with playing and or studying great golf courses. And we can all talk about strategy, angles, length, and all of the other aspects of design that people tend to focus on but what they are missing and why they often struggle to create golf courses that are immensely interesting and playable for golfers of all skill levels is that they have not studied golfers and how they play golf. Since we are designing courses for all golfers, wouldn't it make sense to study how golfers of varying skill levels play the game? Shouldn't this be the first thing that we study as opposed to being the last, if at all?

In the past I have written about the 40,000+ Hours on Great Golf Courses, which is about how much time I've spent on great golf courses. During those 40,000 or so hours, I suspect that I have seen more golf shots played by more types of golfers than the vast majority of Golf Course Architects. Studying how golfers play the game, may be more important than any other single course of study in Golf Course Architecture and yet, it has been virtually ignored by most students of golf course architecture. Can you imagine a traffic engineer designing roads without studying how people drive cars? It seems unlikely, although I think that we have all been in traffic jams where it seems as if the traffic engineer hadn't studied how people drive. And for that matter, we've probably all played too many golf courses where it seemed as if the Golf Course Architect hadn't studied how golfers play the game. Quite often, Architects have to come back and "fix" their golf courses within a year or two of the course opening. I wrote about that in Golf Architecture's Definition of Insanity. Perhaps if those Architects studied golfers and how they play the game of golf, they wouldn't have to "fix" their newly built courses.

In my Anarchist's Philosophy of Golf Course Architecture, I have been critical of modern golf course architecture as being formulaic, stuck in convention, and flawed based on being significantly or primarily based on the study of the great golf courses and golden era architects. It is one of my contentions that golf course architects should study nature first, golf course architecture second and lastly and perhaps most importantly, how people of all skill levels play golf.

When Golf Course Architects begin studying how golfers play the game, they will become better at designing and restoring golf courses.

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

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.