All You Need to Know About Golf Architecture

Like most things in golf, there is no codified explanation or even a vaguely held general consensus as to what golf course architecture could possibly mean. If you were to ask the question to a Golf Course Manager, Tour Player, or Golf Course Architect each would probably furnish a different response, and interestingly, each could be correct.

For example, US Amateur Champion, Walker Cup Participant, and European Tour player, Richie Ramsay for his definition. He answered: "Golf Course Architecture is the compilation and arrangement of features which will create character and beauty while providing strategic options to enhance the golfing experience.

Golf course architecture has to be a talent, a set of skills, a plethora of trades, and an art form. It is the assembling of an incredibly diverse array of skillsets singularly applied to making the most enjoyable golfing experience possible of a chosen piece of land. Golf course architecture is the cumulative sum of all these parts.

Today, a modern practicer of golf course architecture must be much more than simply a golf course designer. They must be intimately acquainted with the legal (planning), social, and political arenas where there work. Look no further than Scotland and the dissension around a recently proposed golf course, a recently renovated links golf course, and a new build links as high-profile examples.

In addition, the environmental impact of golf is under incredible scrutiny, deserved or not. Irrigation, drainage, pesticides, turf grass science, agronomy, woodland management, and regeneration (of heather, for example) are also all skills that need to be acquired or hired by a golf course architect worth his salt. and we still haven't got to the golf (or maybe this is golf?) yet!

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