I was having a college sports email exchange with a colleague, Pat Kiser, when I noticed a great quote from William Flynn which he uses at the bottom of his emails:
“One natural hazard, however, which is more or less of a nuisance, is water. Water hazards absolutely prohibit the recovery shot , perhaps the best shot in the game.”
William Flynn, as you know, is the architect who built Shinnecock Hills, site of many national championships and one of the oldest courses in the country. [***Quick! Can you name the other “founding five?” Chicago Golf Club, St. Andrews (the American one people!), The Country Club are three. I’ll give you a day to tell me the other one…***] Boy talk about dead on target, barring the exceptions at Sawgrass and Augusta, over-use water is the scourge of golf. Televised golf has to be the biggest culprit in foisting this nuisance upon us. Everybody has to see a fountain, a waterfall, a babbling brook. Blue looks so beautiful when contrasted with green! How much fun is it to see pros splash! They look like us on Sunday!
Nonsense. The recovery shot is the most exciting in golf. Pete Dye himself said that when he was instructed to build Sawgrass, the entire purpose was to make it as penal as possible. He said “well, there is no recovery from water.” Now he simply does what the client tells him to do and alot of his courses are for televised tournaments. Nevertheless, Dye still gives us alternate shot patters – fade off tee, draw into the green, then the next hole draw off the tee, fade into the green – which keeps the golfer off balance.
Even so, look at two of three of the greatest courses in the country to open in the last few years – Friar’s Head on the private side, and Tobacco Road and Black Mesa. Friar’s Head doesn’t have a single water hazard. Tobacco Road and Black Mesa have one water hazard each and it’s on a par-3 and doubles as irrigation for the golf course.
While on the topic, Talking Stick North (like Friar’s Head…designed by Coore and Crenshaw) also doesn’t have a single water hazard.
The idea isn’t to make your golf course look like some doctrine of framing, watery, center line course from the 50’s. The idea is to make it look like something from the U.K. or from the U.S. form the 10’s or 20’s. Strantz, Doak, C&C Engh, Dye, Mike Hurdzan, Baxter Spann, Gil Hanse and a new crop of young guns like Ben Steen, Tom Walker, Mike Young and Kelly Blake Moran are all helping lead a charge against the un-natural looking, overly penal, watery center line designs.
The great movement back to excellent, strategic GCA – it’s not coming soon to a course near you…it’s already here.
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