Technical


“There must always be an alternative route for everyone, and thought should be required as well as mechanical skill, and above all it should never be hopeless for the duffer, nor fail to concern and interest the expert”


Tom Doak’s design at Renaissance touches on the traits of links courses by providing extensive fringe areas, creating some interesting short game challenges


The landing zone is the area of the


fairway that has been designed to attract a high percentage of tee shots. I try to create slightly larger, flatter (where possible) areas in the fairway at the point where the majority of balls are likely to come to rest. If the golfer finds this area, they will then be rewarded with a more advantageous position from which to attempt their approach shot. When a series of landing zones are


created, the designer can create vantage points within the fairway which are smaller to hit, but gain higher reward, or bluff the golfer into thinking that they should play towards a larger, more visible landing zone that has a tighter angle of approach for example. On new sites, these areas should be sought out in the pre-existing topography, and modified as little as possible, in order to limit the unnatural feel that can be created by too much land movement. Where there is no topographic interest, landing zones should be formed with a subtlety that makes them look natural to the untrained eye.


Multiple landing zones can be created if the situation calls for a split fairway, or when there is enough space for the hole to be played in different ways. I have also been exploring the merits of staggered landing zones on longer par 4s and par 5s. The issue being that, whilst the designer at present caters purely for the tee shot of players of differing abilities, by staggering the teeing grounds in order for all golfers to be able to find the same landing zone, the approach shot will still be vastly in favour of the longer hitters versus shorter hitters. I have completed a sketch study to show how shorter hitters may be catered for by using a set of staggered landing zones and teeing zones, meaning that on approach, the shorter hitter should be nearer the target than the longer hitter, balancing out both shots for all levels of golfer. Figure one shows two similar


Bobby Jones, Course Designer, Augusta National


holes. The standard hole shows tees playing to one landing zone, whereas the improved hole shows tees playing to four staggered landing zones. The size and shape of a fairway will


vary greatly depending on the available space for each hole. With ample room at Augusta, for example, Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones’s original design idea was to cut out large paths through the trees of the pre-existing orchard and mow almost everything in between as fairway, giving the golfer options on


every tee. Jones’s words from the Golfer’s Year Book reiterate this; “There must always be an alternative route for everyone, and thought should be required as well as mechanical skill, and above all it should never be hopeless for the duffer, nor fail to concern and interest the expert”. However, Augusta National currently has a more considerable rough line and longer and tighter fairways, potentially losing some of the design’s integrity. Tighter courses may not afford such


Figure one: Sketch study showing how staggered landing zones can improve the fairness of a hole.


FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 PC 117


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