Changing Times

Award-winning architect Paul Jansen takes a look at the way technology is helping and hindering golf course construction and maintenance

The wild and wooly links at the much-heralded North Berwick in Scotland

Let me explain.

I hear a lot of people in our business lambasting the golf ball as if it is the biggest problem the game faces. Whilst I concur that the golf ball has done us no favours in the way we are having to stretch the play areas - mostly for the better golfer - I can’t help but feel the longer, straighter ball makes a difficult game a little easier for the majority of golfers. Where is the bad in that?

If we want to point fingers at any one thing that has had such a drastic impact on golf - for good or bad then I would be inclined to list the way we maintain and irrigate our courses today versus yesteryear and the resulting effect this has had on the way the game is played and perceived.

Lush “green” playing areas, manicured bunkers and immaculate putting surfaces are the norm today and anything opposing this is, for the most part, seen as taboo or even unfair. Many golf course superintendents are under pressure to create “Augusta National”-like conditions at their club or fear the wrath of the modern golfer and/or club committee. Clubs will spend millions of dollars each year so that they can look green and play “fair”. Anything brown or tatty is seen as poor maintenance practice and even worse, poor design.

Modern construction, equipment and irrigation systems have given us the opportunity to create conditions that potentially would have been admired all those years ago. Some may have scorned these advances of course. I personally embrace what we can do in golf construction today and my feeling is that most of the best golf architects of previous generations would have thought the same. What’s important is that the architect does not get carried away with the tools he has at his disposal.

I am much less besotted by the general advance and effect of irrigation. I am very conscious it’s necessary in many climates, and I am grateful for this, but I see all too often it being overused to create playing conditions that are visually very appealing to the eye but that come at a hefty cost. Creating over lush and over green conditions is certainly not cheap and it’s hardly sustainable. Yes, you can kill grass by not irrigating at the right times but too little water is hardly as problematic as putting too much water on the play areas. Speak to any golf course superintendent and they will tell you that turf health and playability are much more threatened when overwatering.

Too much watering also softens the playing areas and makes it more receptive - which essentially has an effect on the way we play the game. In this case golf becomes much less about creative and thoughtful play (using the ground to good effect) and more about hitting archetypical shots that drop and stop. This type of golf is very monotonous and leaves little to discover. In my mind this is an unfortunate thing and it is further encouraged by the way many golf courses are designed today.

We have made great strides in golf - most of which has been positive. As we move forward let us continue to embrace this change and development. But let this be measured and just maybe, we need at times to look to the past to plan for the future, so that we don’t lose sight of what has made this game so interesting and fun.

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