On our way back from a recent round of golf, my buddy and I were
discussing the way most golfers evaluate golf courses. We've had
this discussion before, and it inevitably gets around to my
heartfelt conviction that trees do not enhance the "golfing
experience".
Most golfers in North America assume that golf is not golf
without tree-lined fairways. If I am not mistaken, this is a
bias created by a century of golf course design compliments of a
relatively small number of trend-setting designers. In Canada,
Stanley Thompson was the main man. His course designs can be
found across the country, and inevitably they feature lush green
(soft) fairways lined with majestic trees.
Of course
there are many reasons for this, both practical and esthetic.
For starters, eastern North America has lots of trees, and just
as important, it is impossible to replicate the sandy turf of
Scotland or Ireland in other parts of the world that do not
share the same climate.
Nevertheless it struck me as a
bit odd when on a recent trip to Saskatchewan we found the same
type of fairways in that relatively dry prairie climate as we
have here in our much more humid environment in southern
Ontario.
What we have seen in first half of the last
century was a progression from the use of native grasses in a
place like St. Andrews or Dornoch, Scotland to the use of highly
manipulated hybrids like bentgrass in Ontario, where the climate
can (more or less) support them (with constant watering, of
course).
But rather than using native grasses in the
prairie or semi-desert settings of the North American western
plain, course designers in those regions seem to have imported
the ideas developed in the east. Especially the use of trees and
non-native grasses.
One course we played near Elbow,
Saskatchewan had water lying around from the overnight watering.
This was in spite of the recent rainy period in the area. And
while the greens seemed to be holding up well, they were
typically left quite long and shaggy so they could withstand the
inevitable dry spell that was just around the corner.
Seems to me there should be native grasses that would do better
than this. Of course I could be completely wrong...
My
point is that golf course design in North America has often
created synthetic environments that alienate the golfer from the
native terrain and turf. Which gets me back to trees...
To my way of thinking, that trees should come into play during a
round of golf seems an unfortunate departure from the original
way the game was conceived. Once you play a bit of links golf
you realize that the game was originally meant to be played by
running the ball along the ground. Like curling, that other
Scottish obsession, the game represents an attempt to control
the way the ball (stone) interacts with the course (ice).
In the first 100 years or so of golf in North America we have
tried to take this element out of the game by making sure that
the ground remains soft, that the grass is as green and lush as
possible, and that there are as many strategically placed trees
as possible to get in the way of our drives and approach shots.
On the other hand, trees are an important part of the native
landscape in many parts of North America, so I would be
contradicting myself if I said they should not be part of a
"natural" layout in eastern North American. I am not advocating
the "denuding" of the landscape in order to create a pseudo
links-like environment. But trees should remain strictly in the
background as far as I am concerned. Thankfully, this seems to
be the way golf course design has been moving for the last 15
years or so.
About the Author:
Rick Hendershot is a writer, avid golfer and creator of the
Linknet Publishing Network -
http://www.sbo-linknet.com/products - Visit the article
section at Internetgolfreview.com for more golf stories and
articles -
http://www.internetgolfreview.com/articles2
