Design Notebook: Looking Ahead to Future Ryder Cups

We’re on to Bethpage! In this edition of Design Notebook, we don’t linger on the embarrassing loss endured by Team USA, Captain Zach Johnson, and Scouts Consulting. Instead, we look ahead to future Ryder Cups and the venues where they will be—or could be—played. We also ruminate on some research pertaining to the ongoing mini-boom in golf course development.

What Marco Simone did well and what Hazeltine could do better

I finished the lead segment of last week’s Design Notebook with these sentences: “Marco Simone is unlikely to impress anyone as a collection of holes. As an arena for golf’s Super Bowl, however, I expect it to do its job.”

That’s more or less where I still stand after taking in hours of Ryder Cup coverage over the past three days. Aside from a reportedly defective shuttle system, Marco Simone Golf and Country Club’s spectator infrastructure held up beautifully. The place was a thunderdome from Scottie Scheffler’s opening tee shot to Rickie Fowler’s loss-clinching concession. As I argued last week, this is partly the result of design choices: concentrating key holes in a central valley to create a “Colosseum” effect, manufacturing areas where fans can clearly see the action, avoiding choke points in the routing, etc.

The first-tee scene at Marco Simone

When it came to the golf itself, I was somewhat less impressed, but I did enjoy the closing trifecta of the drivable par-4 16th, the exacting par-3 17th, and the reachable par-5 18th. On all of those holes, we got to see players hitting long clubs into small targets under immense pressure—a recipe for both great and terrible shots. I was also relieved that Marco Simone’s rough was lower than expected. While plenty of trouble lurked around the fairways and greens, players weren’t just hacking out of the hay all week. They could usually get back in a hole after a miss, which gave the event a dynamism that the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National lacked.

After the past week, then, I find myself more receptive to the idea of purpose-building a Ryder Cup host in the way the European Tour did at Marco Simone. This is a unique event with unique infrastructural needs. Creating new venues that prioritize those factors makes sense, especially since the Ryder Cup, unlike the Open and the U.S. Open, does not derive its identity from the history and architecture of its playing fields.

Still, I believe that stronger golf course design would have considerably enhanced this past week’s competition. Imagine if more holes at Marco Simone presented the type of high-stakes risk-reward scenarios that made Nos. 16, 17, and 18 so fun to watch. Well, the telecast might not have shown us the shots… but that’s another topic. The point is, there’s no reason for a well-funded stadium course not to have consistently compelling design.

Which brings me to Hazeltine National Golf Club, site of the 2029 Ryder Cup. Two-time U.S. captain Davis Love III is currently drawing up a master plan for the golf course and the surrounding property. Love’s firm has free rein—and, I would assume, a healthy budget—to replace Robert Trent Jones’s design with a badass championship venue. As Andy Johnson reported in this space last month, the work will involve the installation of permanent event infrastructure. Spectator flow will be on point, no doubt.

The big test for Love and his co-designers, though, is whether they can simultaneously build an excellent golf course. Maybe they could start by asking, “What would a truly great first tee shot at the Ryder Cup look like?” The one at Marco Simone proved a bit pedestrian. How can better design make that moment as electric as it can possibly be? -Garrett Morrison

Possibilities for future European Ryder Cup venues

As of now, only one future Ryder Cup in Europe has been assigned to a venue: the 2027 event will be held at Adare Manor in Ireland. So which European golf courses should host the Ryder Cup in 2031 and beyond?

In last week’s Design Notebook, Garrett Morrison talked about how we should evaluate Ryder Cup courses, and he makes some great points—key in on fan experience and let atmosphere drive the event. But the decision at Marco Simone, in a country with a less-than-rabid golf culture, to sacrifice interesting golf for a buildout around a three-day event reminds me a bit of Olympic infrastructure of the last few decades. I don’t see a lot of golf die-hards traveling to the Roman suburbs to play the 2023 Ryder Cup venue. Maybe I’m wrong.

So which courses should the Ryder Cup go to? As Garrett and Dave Sampson of European Golf Design discussed a couple of weeks ago, infrastructure space and fan movement are really the most important factors. Still, we could do a better job of picking established courses with strong architecture that also happen to meet the Ryder Cup’s spectator requirements.

I’ll give one realistic option and one slightly more far-fetched one that I’d personally enjoy. Both, I believe, fit the criteria for infrastructure, fan movement, and proximity to a major city (which I think is also critical).

With the rise of players like Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, David Lingmerth, and Carl Pettersson, I’d like to see a Scandinavian host in the near future. Bro Hof Slott, which sits equidistant from the airport and the downtown area in Stockholm, would be a decent candidate. Recent European venues have trended toward homogenized, vaguely American setups, and Bro Hof Slott’s Stadium Course certainly fits that bill. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., it has hosted a European Tour event five times and can be stretched to over 8,000 (!) yards. The setting is beautiful, and the course looks fine, with lots and lots of water, including on the back-to-back par-3 16th and 17th holes.

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Plus, it seems like there’s plenty of space to stuff in fans and build first-tee arenas (or maybe a Viking ship?)

What I would truly prefer, though, is a return to the Ryder Cup’s roots: a classic links or heathland course. Very few of these places have enough room for contemporary infrastructure, and although there are some incredible courses around London, I’m afraid the powers-that-be would probably just pick Wentworth, so let’s head north.

I’ve seen Dumbarnie Links proposed, and I guess that’s a solid compromise between a traditional links and, say, Gleneagles, which hosted the Ryder Cup in 2014.

But the course I’d really like to see come back is the original Scottish Ryder Cup venue—Muirfield. It’s less than an hour from Edinburgh, seems to have the space for an adequate buildout, and—here’s the kicker—the potential to provide a fantastic fan experience.

Muirfield's famous outside-inside routing should allow for smooth gallery movement

Given its brilliant outer/inner routing, Muirfield offers spectators the opportunity to move fairly easily between holes and nines. In this way, it’s very different from Whistling Straits, where a two-mile walk is required to get from one end of the course to the other. Another plus: given that the standard member game is foursomes, it’s already got the walking paths cut in—let’s get these Ryder Cup pairings slingshotting!

Oh, and it’s also an amazing golf course. -Cameron Hurdus

The surge

Recent reporting on the uptick in high-end golf development in Florida has gotten me thinking about the exact nature of the post-Covid surge in U.S. golf construction. Are most of these projects by and for America’s wealthiest one percent? Is affordable public golf screwed?

The National Golf Foundation has some clarifying, though not entirely reassuring, findings on this subject. Here’s the nut graf: “When it comes to traditional golf courses, what’s being built today is different than during the development boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The past 10 years have seen a disproportionate number of high-end private clubs, the rise of destination golf, and the emergence of upscale short courses.”

Glass half-full: we’re building better-quality golf than we did 25 to 30 years ago. The game itself, not real estate, has been the primary motive behind a lot of recent construction.

Glass half-empty: although golf development is the hottest it has been in two decades, we’re not significantly adding to our supply of local and affordable public courses.

It’s worth remembering, though, that the new-build market in the U.S. is just one part of the industry-wide picture. I’d like the NGF to publicize more of its research on golf course improvements, ranging from full reconstructions to small-scale changes. Most of these projects are happening at private and destination facilities, but we’re also seeing a fair amount of action at the mid-range daily-fee and municipal level.

Andy and I have said it before but it bears repeating: the most exciting public-golf projects in the next 20 years will likely be renovations and restorations. -GM

A course we photographed recently

Wine Valley Golf Club (Walla Walla, WA)—designed by Dan Hixson, opened in 2009

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Quotable

“Competitive golf is chiefly responsible for this tendency to eliminate chance to the utmost possible extent, to design courses of absolute and relentless justice.” -Tom Simpson