Knollwood 16th

 

 

The before

 

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday just outside New York City. This was the start of the restoration work at Knollwood Country Club, a course designed by Seth Raynor and finished by Charles Banks. The main focus of the work will be restoring all the greens back out to the edge of their fill pads and returning the bunkers back to their original steepness and configuration. I was on site to provide direction for the restoration of the 16^th hole.

 

We began by expanding the green out to the edge by removing all the sand build-up at the bunkers and by amending the remaining edges of the plateau to create a soil profile that matches the rest of the green. The next stage was to lower the exit points and raise the centre point approximately six inches to get minimal fall, since the green was stunningly flat through the main pin area. We then amended the entire surface again to try and bring more sand into the greens mix to improve the porosity and growing environment.

 

Once the green was pushed to the limits, we then set out to restore the bunkers. The front bunkers were quite close to the original shape and depth, so we concentrated on returning the two noses (unusual for Raynor, but not as unusual for Banks) and made sure the two bunkers were pretty close to the shapes of the originals. We then concentrated on the wrap around bunker that begins on the left and extends all the way around to the right of the green. The bunker was long gone and so were the original side slopes. We concentrated on the green side slopes and returned the steepness all the way around. From there we dug out the remainder of the bunker so that it once again completely encircles the green as originally designed.

 

 

The After (white is green expansion)

 

The next stage is removing approximately 30 large White Pines. The primary reason is to open up the airflow, but this is also to return the views too. Players will look out the back of the green and see the beautiful ridge in the distance, looking to the right they catch a glimpse of the beautiful clubhouse and once they stand on the green they will see the  incredible hidden stone bridge that is shown in so many of the pictures from the turn of the century.

 

 

The left side of the green with the wrap around bunker going in

 

This is our opportunity to make a statement to the membership, since they will not only get a chance to see a hole completed, but can understand the impact of all the green recapturing that has begun at the other 15 greens. The superintendent at the club is outstanding to work with, shares the vision and has taken the bull by the horns and pushed forward with the recapture of the greens on the course. By seeing the 16^th done, the membership will come to understand why all those areas are worth the patience as he slowly convert them down to greens height by cutting and over-seeding.

 

 

The right side of the wrap around bunker is 10 feet deep!

 

I talked about my trip a few days ago and how enjoyable that whole experience was, but that still doesn’t compare with the thrill of returning the work of a Master Architect and knowing how much the membership will enjoy laying the hole after we are finished.

 

August 27th, 2010

 

 

 

Prairie Dunes

 

4th at Prairie (courtesy GCA)

 

There are few courses more surprising than Prairie Dunes. The hour long drive in from Wichita makes you wonder where you made the wrong turn. It’s only a quarter mile from the course where you see the first slight rise. There is not a single dune right up until you get to the golf course, and then there they are fifty feet high, a series of dunes reminiscent of the coastline in Scotland. It only makes sense once you realize that Kansas was once underwater and these are actually coastal dunes.

 

The next surprise is the landscape. Everything that is not golf course is either native prairie grass, perennial or thicket shrub. The club has long embraced the importance of this beautiful but disappearing landscape. They actively manage the native areas with controlled burns and other programs designed to help the native areas flourish in their natural state. They don’t fight nature instead they encourage it as a significant part of the course. The splashes of colour along with the beautiful golden grasses provide the club with a magnificent texture unique to only Prairie Dunes. When you combine that with the wonderful dunes and copses of ancient Cottonwood, you truly have something very special.

 

The course is a combination of Perry and Press Maxwell. The routing does a wonderful job of playing through, along, up on to and off the main dune lines of the property. The driving areas are beautifully defined by the dune lines and it’s probably one of the best driving courses I have had the pleasure of playing. The green sites are well mixed with just as many set down inside natural valleys between the dunes as there are set up on plateaus up in the dunes. The great tribute to both men is how each hole has a unique setting, its own particular challenge and that how each embraces the land.

 

 

14th at Prairie (courtesy GCA)

 

Perry Maxwell in my estimation was the greatest designer of greens the game has seen. His work at places like Pine Valley and Augusta (seven of the existing greens) has no peer. The greens at Prairie Dunes are impressive. The mixture of exceptional interior contouring, false fronts, side droops and internal ridges has developed a set of greens where certain pins require you to play from particular locations on the fairway. I was lucky enough to experience different pins and saw how placement dictated position back in the fairway.

 

The bunkers are the focal point for many. The integration of native grasses, the inclusion of yucca plants and the raw torn out appearance is very reminiscent of the pictures of the earliest bunkers from the book British Links. I found each bunker had character, each one blended into the surroundings perfectly and all of them did a wonderful job of adding some architectural and visual accents to the course. The wonderful part of the bunkering is that it reinforces the strategy created by the routing often by sitting to the sides and collecting the mistakes or aggressive play rather than imposing as the singular strategy of the hole. For this reason the course is eminently playable and fair, in fact a running shot often is a good solution, but because of the green sites and internal green contour the course remains tough as nails at the same time.

 

As we headed out of the parking lot I stole one last glance over my shoulder at that magnificent golf course and thought to myself I must return one day. We rolled a quarter mile down the road and the dunes were gone and the site opening up to the flattest land you can imagine. I would have had a long face, except I could see every hole and every bunker of that golf course as fresh as if I was standing on the fairways and tees again. Prairie Dunes had not only met some very high expectations, but had surprised me by being even more than I had hoped.

 

 

The Week-end of a Lifetime

 

 

I’ve had some pretty amazing experiences in my life and I’m a very fortunate man.

 

This week-end past was certainly one of my favourites. I flew Thursday night to Chicago and onto Wichita on Friday morning. We went directly to Prairie Dunes to play the course that I most wanted to see in the world. I’ve long had a fascination with Prairie Dunes and how well the golf course incorporates the native prairie right into the architecture. It exceeded even my high expectations for the course. I will write about the course this week.

 

That evening we made a bee line back to Wichita to go and see Rush. I’ve been a fan for a very long time, preferring the first half of their career over the later half. This tour was not based on an album, but rather a reflective look back including the complete playing of my favourite album Moving Pictures. What made the evening special was I was given a backstage pass, a chance to walk on the stage and see the crowd prior to the show, a front row seat, a pick from Geddy Lee and a chance to meet some really interesting people over dinner back stage. It was a night to remember.

 

We returned to Prairie Dunes for 36 more, but cut it a little short with the heat taking its toll on all of us. This provided me with a chance to meet many members and made me really wish I could join that club. We made a quick flight to Chicago and spent the night at the Olympia Fields clubhouse. Next morning feature 18 holes on the South Course, which was really good. That afternoon featured 18 holes over at Shoreacres playing with the professional and a member. Shoreacres was another course that I dearly wanted to see for the routing and architecture of Seth Raynor. It was a great example of detail work around the greens. The one fascinating thought is some of the best holes are not templates!

 

I then did my best to help us try miss our plane (missed the turn-off when we were running tight to time), but we made the plane and flew back to Toronto. I’m home, I’m tired and I feel so very lucky to be given a chance to have a week-end like that.

August 23rd, 2010 

 

 

The Tournament Ball

 

On Monday this week 24 players from the Canadian Tour played the “tournament ball.� I got to see one of the balls and it has nothing on it except a very cryptic code that would be appropriate on the side of a German U-Boat. The ball had nothing that would make it clear who had made it.

24 players played it and had to agree to complete confidentiality on the results. I spoke the next day at a Pro-am and interestingly enough the subject that I choose was the impact on the ball on golf design. I had a number of players who approached me after the talk and a couple mentioned they had played the ball yesterday and how ironic it was that I was talking about how much a role back would help as designer. There was no criticism from anyone that I spoke to.

One player in particular went so far as to mentioned that he loved the ball since it required him to hit one of two clubs more into all the holes and felt that this rewarded skill. He also felt that they were playing the holes as they were designed to play and that was placing a premium back on the approach and ball placement. He felt that anything that returned shot-making was better for the game. He also pointed out the great layouts they used to play that have become too short and felt that was reason enough for change.

 

I talked to the commissioner Rick Janes about the ball from a designer’s perspective and went into detail about safety, acreage requirements, the additional maintenance requirements, extra time to play and the overall impact on the cost of golf. I told him that in my perspective this had nothing to do with defending par, and everything to do with fixing the economics and stemming the decline in participation. And as the player above said, getting them back on some old great layouts that technology is making less relevant.

 

August 19th, 2010