of mountains after we abandoned posts used to observe the enemy.” All the better to deal with dif-
John LaFoy designed courses such as the Wil- liamsburg Golf Club in Virginia, pictured here.
centuries-old art of landscaping,” says Cobb Jr. “In Japan, he learned a lot about incorporating aesthetics into his designs.” When Cobb retired in 1981 (five
years before his death), LaFoy struck out on his own, designing 12 golf courses and renovating myriad links built by such lionized masters as Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones. His Marine Corps experience has
been the gift that keeps on giving. As an engineer officer in Vietnam, LaFoy had to grapple with drench- ing monsoons, acquiring the exper- tise required to resolve the chronic drainage issues that plague many golf courses. LaFoy’s extensive familiarity
with explosives also has aided his work designing golf courses. Early on in Vietnam, his primary duty was to routinely sweep the highway between Da Nang and Chu Lai for land mines. “When we found one, we blew it in place,” he says. “We also blew the tops off a couple
ficult terrain he encountered when he built two nine-hole courses at Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park. He had to employ heavy blasting to carve several holes from solid gran- ite. “Because of my Vietnam experi- ence, I understood that when rock is dynamited it expands so that it appears that you have blasted more rock than you actually have — in terms of volume,” he says. “That knowledge enabled me to write the construction specifications in a way in which the owner and contractor knew exactly how the rock was to be measured, which saved a good amount of money when it came to removing it.”
A legend’s lasting influence Back at Camp Lejeune, the Gold Course and Scarlet Course attract legions of Marines hell-bent on con- quering par. The level, tree-lined, utterly uncontrived fairways bring to mind the dramatic changes that have taken place in links design since George Cobb first contemplated a golf course on the installation. Star architects such as Jack
Nicklaus and Pete Dye dominate to- day’s booming golf design scene. The extreme mound- ing and elaborate bunkers that de- fine their courses, which resemble colossal sculp- tures, are built and maintained using high-tech
Golfers head to the next hole at the Sound of Freedom Golf Course in Cherry Point, N.C.
MONTH 2005 MILITARY OFFICER 73
machinery. In contrast, the construc- tion of the Gold Course was dependent on horses drawing primitive equip- ment. But even back then, there was a glimmer of things to come. Remembers Cobb Jr., “When my
father started routing the Scarlet Course, he was able to access some advanced equipment that had been sitting idle after construction of Camp Lejeune was completed. His old-school associate, Fred Findlay, wasn’t happy about it. When he saw all the bulldozers, he yelled, ‘Get those monsters off my golf course!’” In 2003, the Marine Corps called
on LaFoy to remodel two holes at the Gold Course. With great senti- ment and reverence, he went about working the turf that had been George Cobb’s launchpad 60 years earlier. “I knew how much that golf course meant to him,” he reflects. “I did it the way Mr. Cobb would have … if he’d had a second shot. I adhered to his style, right down to the oval bunkers.” The trip to Lejeune was a senti-
mental journey in more ways than one: “It was a thrill reconnecting with the Marines,” LaFoy says.
MO
— Jolee Edmondson is a freelance writer based in Savannah, Ga. This is her first feature article for Military Officer.
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