Design Notebook: A Short Course Renaissance?

Howdy and welcome to the year’s final installment of Design Notebook. We started this Club TFE-only feature in August and have really enjoyed bringing our members the latest from the world of golf architecture every Monday. We’re looking forward to keeping up the weekly routine in 2024. In the meantime, if there’s anything you think we should cover in this space when we rev back up after New Year’s, let us know.

All right, on with this week’s edition, in which we give some takes on the micro-trend of public short course renovations and share a few of our favorite photos from 2023.

The par-3 courses are coming!

Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen short courses populate the destination-resort landscape. Bandon Preserve, the Prairie Club’s Horse Course, the Cradle at Pinehurst, and the Sandbox at Sand Valley have all thrilled resort guests. They’ve also posed a question: why can’t every town have a course like this?

Well-designed short courses take up smaller chunks of land and cost far less to build and maintain than regulation layouts, while also offering a quick, fun version of the game. They make too much sense for metropolitan areas currently littered with forgettable “executive courses,” which unfortunately often serve as an entry point to golf for the masses.

Thankfully, a rebirth of the imaginative, urban, public-access short course may be upon us. In San Francisco, the renovated Golden Gate Park is set for an early-Q1 debut in 2024; and outside of Minneapolis, the Loop at Chaska should open when the snow melts next year. In both of these cases, talented architects reimagined existing facilities for less than $3 million and without taxpayer burden.

Let’s talk about what makes the courses unique and how they should inspire future community-focused golf projects.

Golden Gate Park (San Francisco, CA)

• Opens early 2024
• Renovated by Jay Blasi

Bay Area-based architect Jay Blasi got a great opportunity here thanks to the work of Dan Burke and the First Tee of San Francisco. Burke was able to raise money and sell a vision for what this strong but overgrown golf property in San Francisco’s most famous park could be. The course sits on choppy sand dunes just a couple of blocks from the Pacific Ocean, making it extraordinarily well located for a par-3 course. The property is small, just 20 acres, but packed with interesting topography. With Blasi’s work—which included tree removal, the opening up of dunesy waste areas, and the building of a set of very fun greens—the course now feels complete.

The first hole introduces you to some of Golden Gate Park’s main themes. It has a stunning double green, shared with the fourth hole, where the contours allow for any type of tee shot, from a high short iron to a low runner that uses the sideboards along the approach. Almost every hole at GGP features these shot options.

The first green sits on a central high point where the second tee, fifth tee, and seventh tee also reside. This spot offers terrific views of both the course ahead and the Pacific Ocean. It’s a setting that will impress any type of a golfer, from a beginner to a world traveler, and the architecture matches the setting in complexity and fun.

To me, the big question around GGP is how long it will remain in a condition that accentuates Blasi’s design. The deal struck by Burke contains some levers to ensure competent maintenance, but San Francisco’s parks department doesn’t have much experience maintaining courses at a level that 1) allows the architecture to shine and 2) copes with the kinds of sharp slopes Blasi created. We’ll see.

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The Loop at Chaska (Chaska, MN)

• Opens spring 2024
• Renovated by Ben Warren

The Loop at Chaska is a first for golf architecture: a fully adaptive short course that will allow any type of golfer to play without limitations. To achieve this vision, architect Ben Warren, with the help of Tanelle Bolt and Barrier Free Golf, created a course with a ton of short grass and no bunkers.

Since he couldn’t rely on bunkers—or on the somewhat mediocre site—to generate interest, Warren had to focus on green contouring. He did an excellent job varying the style of the greens, with some that collect and others that repel. One green that will surely turn heads is the punchbowl second, where it should be loads of fun to watch shots come in and whip around the wild slopes. Another of my favorites is the sixth, which has fronting mounds that obscure the putting surface and create a semi-blind shot on a mere 119-yard hole.

It’s also notable that this “short course” has a par 4, the third, which gives players a chance to hit driver. People sometimes assume short courses can have only par 3s, but obviously this doesn’t have to be the case. Part of the fun of golf is taking a big cut with a driver, and there is no reason a short course can’t offer that experience. There are no rules here.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the Loop at Chaska’s putting green, dubbed the “Minilayas.” No doubt Warren, who grew up in North Berwick, Scotland, was inspired by that town’s popular putting course, which is often crowded with local families. I hope Chaska’s putting green, along with the short course, get plenty of run during the coverage of the 2024 U.S. Amateur, which will be held at nearby Hazeltine National Golf Club.

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Both the Loop at Chaska and Golden Gate Park are milestones in public golf development. In both cases, at no additional cost to the taxpayer, small pieces of land were rejuvenated and modernized for future use. I anticipate that the courses will be wildly popular in their local communities thanks to reasonable green fees and all-handicap-friendly designs. They are also examples of how public golf architecture doesn’t need to be watered down; the greens at Chaska and GGP are more intricate, compelling, and extravagant than those of their neighboring high-profile private clubs. These greens promote the most fascinating part of golf: getting the ball on the ground and letting it roll over undulations.

I hope that one of golf’s leading organizations has the wherewithal to invite municipal leaders to tour these facilities and sit down with the people who made them possible. Versions of Chaska and GGP’s affordable and unique golf architecture are achievable throughout the country. This type of course directly combats the public game’s biggest dilemmas: land use, the time it takes to play, the cost of playing, and the difficulty of learning.

With that, I’ll toss it to you: what are a few short or executive courses that you would like to see get rehabbed? -Andy Johnson

Our favorite photos from 2023

One of the joys of my job is getting to see golf courses in early mornings and late evenings, often when they’re nearly empty. These moments are slow and quiet but never boring: the light and landscape always conspire to deliver something unexpected. Is it pleasant to wake up before dawn to drive to a golf course, or to miss dinner while waiting for golden hour? Not particularly. But once you’re out there and the topography starts glowing, you can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

Our primary photographers this year were Andy, Cameron, and Matt. I consider myself a kind of pinch runner in this group; you can send me out there to steal a base, and from time to time I might be able to lay down a bunt.

As an end-of-year exercise, each of us chose our favorite photo or two from 2023. Enjoy! -Garrett Morrison

The 11th green at Lookout Mountain Club

Tyler Rae and Kyle Franz’s restoration of Lookout Mountain restoration is quite bold; it will make you feel something. Since Seth Raynor died before the course was finished, there is some question as to whether it ever reflected his intentions. This gave Rae and Franz some creative license. Here, at the famous 11th hole, a dramatic Alps template which crests a ridge and plays down to a punchbowl green, shaper Ben Warren went all-out. Warren attempted to match the slopes at the back of the green with the mountains in the background, creating a striking visual echo. While the green might be a bit too sloped for modern green speeds, the artistic aspect of the work is amazing. Was it what was originally there? Probably not. Is it memorable? Absolutely. And the latter is what I really want from art. -AJ

The 13th green at Pacific Grove Golf Links

The 14th tee at Pacific Grove is by no means a photographic hidden gem—I think almost everyone pulls out their phone when they reach this high point of the property—but sometimes timing is everything. On this evening, a light autumn mist filtered a perfect Monterey sunset, highlighting a golfer practicing putts on the 13th green. -Cameron Hurdus

The 11th hole at Colorado Golf Club

I took this photo shortly after moving to the Denver area, and I remember that evening well. As I trekked across the Colorado Golf Club property to get back to my car, the sun reached its lowest point above the Front Range, beaming a beautiful glow across the golf course. Coore & Crenshaw’s bold contours on the 11th green were shining. A special evening to remember in my new home. -Matt Rouches

The eighth (foreground) and seventh (background) holes at Wine Valley Golf Club

Some purists dislike drone photography. They say it’s pretty but not truly substantive. I disagree. Among other things, a drone’s eye view of a golf course can show how entire fairways, greens, and even groupings of holes fit into large-scale landforms. What I love about this shot of Wine Valley’s seventh and eighth holes is that it reveals the relationships between the property and the architecture: the continually irrigated alfalfa fields standing above Dan Hixson’s follow-the-valleys routing; the smooth slopes of the surrounding loess hills contrasted with the well-executed micro-contouring of the fairways and greens. You can’t capture this kind of stuff nearly as well from the ground. -GM

The fifth green at Scottsdale National Golf Club

At just over 22,000 square feet, the fifth green is the largest at Scottsdale National. It’s also my favorite, especially when the cascading false-front features start to show off in the low evening light. -CH

The eighth hole at Sand Valley

It’s hard to describe what sets truly outstanding shaping apart from merely good shaping. You know it when you see it, though. And I see it in the par-3 eighth hole at Coore & Crenshaw’s Sand Valley. No one else in golf architecture creates compositions this balanced, naturalistic, and pleasing to the eye. -GM

Quotable

“Most of us understand that nature can make golf course designers look good. However, the standard cliché, that ‘mother nature can do it better,’ is true only up to a point. I don’t believe nature can make great golf all by itself. In hilly or steep terrain like that found at Wade Hampton or Champion Hills in the mountains of western North Carolina, I think it’s pretty obvious that you need to shape the land forms to create a quality golf setting and to produce acceptable shot values. That’s where a golf course designer really earns his keep.” –Tom Fazio