natural green that blends into the land around
Linna Golf, 6th hole -a
a very
Five essential ingredients for making a GREAT
CREATING outstanding greens is perhaps the most important factor in golf course design. It’s the topic that golfers talk about most in the clubhouse and the reputations of golf courses can be made or broken on the quality of their greens. Greens are also where the business end of professional tournament golf takes place - where championships are decided - so they are regularly the focus for the television cameras and the viewing public. From a practical perspective, ensuring that the greens are constructed to the highest quality is vitally important - but the greens themselves have to be designed to be both memorable while also blending seamlessly into their surroundings. It’s a tough job for the golf course
architect, especially as 18 greens have to be created, each individual yet consistent with the others. However, as golf course architects we can often use the following guidelines to achieve the desired result:
1 The right green for the right location
GREENS must aesthetically blend in with their natural surroundings - the contours of the land and the conditions of the site. A golf course architect can not go to every new site with the same formulated design for a green - forcing a green into a location can make it stick out like a sore thumb, even if the putting surface itself is excellent. Some of the best greens in the world have developed completely naturally - just look at the many links courses in the UK. So, the designer should always use the natural contours of the land around the green to their advantage. A good example of this is the 6th green at Linna Golf in Finland, designed by Tim Lobb, principal of Thomson Perrett & Lobb - the site was more or less made for a natural green location, blending the original slopes of the land into the green. This meant the amount of construction work that went into creating the green was low and, to my
eye, it fits seamlessly into its surroundings.
2 Suitable challenge for the approach shot
Greens are not just for putting on, of course. They also receive incoming shots, and taking this and the likely length of the approach shot into account is an important consideration when designing the slopes on the green. From a design perspective, architects primarily use the size and severity of slope on the green to adjust its difficulty. Par 5s are especially interesting. I always consider them as three-shot holes, even though many professionals can often reach them in two. So, I have no problem with making the green smaller or harder to hit - that’s fair for a third shot with a short iron, while increasing the challenge for the long, accurate hitter who wants to try and reach the green in two. However, if it is a long par 4, say around 460 yards, it would be unfair to
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