Design Notebook: A Place for Nostalgic Golf

The days are getting slightly shorter, the crops are ripening, our kids are returning to school, and the golf season, while by no means dying, is well past middle age. It’s a time when many of us develop a penchant for nostalgia. So for this edition of Design Notebook, we lead not with news from the architecture world, but with a reflection on the joys of nostalgic golf. Also included: a head-to-head between Shoreacres and Chicago Golf and a perspective on the green-speed dilemma that many clubs face.

Going home

Recently, on a trip to my hometown for a friend’s wedding, I got to play the course where I spent many, many hours as a teenager. Gig Harbor Golf Club in Gig Harbor, Washington, is a nine-hole, 2,650-yard course with two par 5s (one of which, the first hole, is only 438 yards) and three par 3s. It was built in 1961 and designed by founding members of the club. I played a lot of matches with friends there, but my favorite times were teeing off after 6 p.m. late in the summer, hoping to get in as many holes as possible. I’m sure many golfers have similar memories of their own home courses.

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Gig Harbor is not an architecturally interesting course, but that’s not particularly important to me. It’s the place where I first experienced “real golf.” My dad took me to a junior camp there when I was seven years old, back when they used to cut two holes per green. It’s the place where I played a summer evening 10-some with all of my closest golf buddies. That was in 2005, but it feels like it just happened.

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In my lifetime alone, the club has made a bevy of ridiculous in-house design decisions. I remember the poorly built bunkers, the countless iterations of horrendous fairway lines, the horrendous streams to nowhere, and, of course, the tree plantings. Like many courses in the Pacific Northwest, Gig Harbor is in desperate need of a tree program (which is to say: most of them need to go). The ones I recall being planted 20 years ago are huge now.

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It’s clear, though, that the members love their golf course. Even though the various architectural wrongs are unlikely to be righted anytime soon, I realized during my last round there that Gig Harbor is still my favorite place to spend a sunny evening in August.

This got me thinking: what place does purely nostalgic golf have in the game?

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Garrett and Geoff Shackelford touched on something related in a recent episode of the Fried Egg Golf Podcast. Their discussion of Geoff’s “RED” system of evaluating golf courses (R=Do you Remember every hole?; E=Would you like to play the course Every day?; D=Would it be a good place to take your Dog on a walk?) made me ask myself, What exactly makes a course one that I’d gladly play every day? I find this a hard question to answer.

But my visit to Gig Harbor reminded me that there are many factors, including very personal ones, that can allow a course to transcend the architectural shortcomings we tend to focus on in this space. -Cameron Hurdus

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A Chicago showdown

During my recent extended stay in Chicago, I went out to photograph Shoreacres, a phenomenal golf course. During my day there, I thought a lot about how its natural topography compared with that of Seth Raynor’s other great design in the area, Chicago Golf Club.

The landscapes of the two courses couldn’t be more different. Shoreacres weaves through the type of dramatic ravine system that you frequently see north of Chicago. These landforms create thrilling golf. The main challenge is avoiding the large natural hazards that travel along and across the holes. On the 11th, for example, a ravine crosses in front of the tee, runs along the right side of the fairway, then cuts in front of the green. These shots really get your heart pumping.

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The drawback of Shoreacres’s land is that most of the playing areas, particularly the fairways, are as flat as a pancake. If you avoid the ravines, you’ll have a lot of driving range-type lies.

Compare this to Chicago Golf Club’s land, which is often (and falsely) called flat. While not as breathtaking as Shoreacres’s ravinescape, Chicago Golf’s property is more varied and has more compelling topography in its fairways. Combined with wonderfully firm and fast conditions, the rolling terrain demands precise shot-making for scoring. For instance, the first fairway cants from right to left, and in order to hold it on a dry summer day, you’ll need to play a left-to-right tee shot to the right side. From there, you’ll face an approach from an uneven lie into an unrelenting green. This kind of land isn’t as dramatic or punishing as a large ravine system, but it tests a golf swing and shot-making capabilities to a greater degree.

The first hole at Chicago Golf Club

When I wrote the Club TFE profile of Chicago Golf, I grappled for days over whether its land deserved an Egg. I ultimately settled on no. If every hole had the movement of the first, Chicago might be the greatest course in the world. The reality is, though, that the topography isn’t consistently great throughout the property. A few holes are quite flat, and the green complexes have to do the heavy lifting.

So the question is, which type of ground is better for golf?

If I were given one round, I’d have a hard time passing up the excitement of Shoreacres, but if I were asked to divide up 10 rounds between the two, I’d give the edge to Chicago Golf and the mental stimulation it provides. -Andy Johnson

The green-speed dilemma

Brookside Country Club, host of our most recent Fried Egg Golf event, is in the early stages of developing a master plan with architect Tyler Rae. The project will include fairway widening, tree removal, and—most significantly—alterations to the club’s Donald Ross greens. Running at modern green speeds, many greens at Brookside have extremely limited pin positions. A couple have just two or three options.

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My general position is that clubs like Brookside have lost pinnable space primarily because their greens are simply too fast. But the solution is more complicated than just saying, “Slow it down!”

Brookside definitely keeps its greens running quick, no doubt about it. But dialing them back to 10 feet on the Stimpmeter wouldn’t bring back many pin positions. Some surfaces—notably Nos. 7, 12, 16, and 17—would require 7.5- to eight-foot readings to recapture a significant amount of pinnable area. While I’d love to play Brookside’s greens at this speed, it’s completely understandable that the club wouldn’t want to go this route. The vast majority of golfers expect greens to roll smoothly and quickly at private courses, and they might find it strange for Brookside to keep their multiple feet slower. I can see how the club might be worried about turning off potential new members.

This green-speed dilemma presents an interesting challenge for a restoration architect. How do you add new pin positions to wonderfully designed putting surfaces without changing the character of the greens themselves? Typically the answer is expanding the greens out to their original dimensions. In Brookside’s case, however, the club has actually done a decent job with mowing lines over the years. So my guess is that Tyler Rae and his team will focus on keeping the external Ross features as bold as possible, while making the internal movements more subtle.

The likely outcome is that Brookside will lose some of what makes its greens distinctive and remarkable while gaining more day-to-day variety in pin positions. These days, that’s a trade-off most golfers seem willing to accept. -Will Knights

Some courses we’ve photographed recently

Shoreacres (Lake Bluff, IL)—designed by Seth Raynor in 1919

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Knollwood Club (Lake Forest, IL)—designed by C.H. Alison in 1924, recent restoration work by Keith Foster and Drew Rogers

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Quotable

“It is interesting… how HAVING TO DESIGNATE PAR changes how we design our in-between holes. If we call such a hole a long par 3, we are less likely to make it difficult around the green, or make the target very small; whereas if we call it a par 4 we seem compelled to make the up-and-downs difficult. Ultimately, what people find fun is hitting exciting shots. It doesn’t matter whether they make ‘par’ or not.” –Tom Doak