Pondering A Golf Course Under Construction

BY Tony Cashmore

The Henley Course at The Heritage in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs now has 13 holes formed, most of them grassed and being mown. And three further holes right now are being constructed on this floodplain of the Yarra, huge yellow machines sculpturing wet black clay into forms determined by contour drawings. The bunkers still are merely drained convoluted hollows, awaiting final shaping and sand. The new lakes are mainly there, but yet without the wild grasses, reeds and low bushes which are to soften and clad raw banks.

This is about the time an architect walks the course, studying each hole from every direction, and asks: “Will the good strong golfers find challenge in the journey? Will players with lesser skills, strength, find it arduous, too difficult? Is the balance about right?”

It’s All About BalanceWe all worry about that balance, that constant presentation of play options, flexibility, hole after hole, at about this time in a new course’s construction – don’t let them tell you otherwise. You see, this is to be a ’club’ course, and most men golfers at clubs have difficulty playing to a 18 handicap – a stroke a hole, most girls think it’s great to get near breaking 100. So it’s not merely a question of sculpturing the terrain to give golfingly-beautiful vistas, the sort of views in selected light conditions that someone like David Scaletti can photograph stunningly. And it certainly must not be a course which only the mighty can really conquer, notwithstanding the fact that the sternest, most vocal and influential critics of a course’s examination come from that elite small group of players who can confidently pound drives out 280 metres, and straight too, and get a ball to suck back off marble with a 7-iron. No, the pondering I’m doing for Henley just now is stirred by a comment made to me (again) in a boisterous pub last week – “Why do architects make the courses so bloody tough? I just want to have fun in the game with my mates, not constantly looking for balls in head-high jungle, and having to clear bottomless bunker pits or endless water just to reach the green stuff, and putting on greens where Volkswagens have obviously been shallowly buried!”

So, to Henley Course. Here’s how I see it in its gestation, hitting the sort of shots, on still high-mown fairways, which many ordinary golfers would sympathise with and understand – (lousy shoulder, mates, and that’s my excuse) – and putting on true tight greens already there to play. You need to understand something about the site to put it all in context: much of the course is routed over open flat floodplain, between billabongs and ancient oxbows which had to be respected utterly, their riparian zones brought back from the degradation from long-term cattle grazing. Cut-to-fill work was undertaken which had to achieve all play areas elevated above the 1 in 20 flood event, whilst the water level for lakes had to respect overall floodplain drainage geared to the Yarra – a broad elevation difference of nearly four metres. How to bring the juxtaposition of banks down to the water level in as convincing way as practical was therefore a major problem. And some of it looks raw now, and will until the camouflage of plantings over sharpish banks echoes the character of the adjacent river.

There were a few majestic gums, one flat bang in the centre of the only, narrowish slow valley available to reach the high land. It has (unfortunately) died, and has been taken away – Hole 13. Another is considered precious, and closes off much of the right side approach to the 14th green, which is set on the only place available, the old house up on its right, tumbling hills down to water on its left. No option here, really. And one very tall, skeleton – dead tree some 120 metres in front of the back 6th tee, in the only fairway passage available for consideration along the base of a steep high hill system, a remnant billabong section flanking the left side. When eventually you play this hole remember that I was not allowed to remove it, and so sought the broadest possible scope of drivelines on both sides of it, so that the birds who apparently live happily in its ancient hollows can chortle, watching the dilemma of silly golfers making a decision on the tee.

Time To PonderI ponder. Yes, there is a lot of water through the golf terrain, necessarily so, but hopefully not constantly forcing carries – the only absolutely confronting caries are on Holes 5, 14 and 15, the back tee on 5 being on an island, the maximum distance to reach the fairway being some 120 metres, whilst the 15th is a shortish par 3 to a wide green where even the girls need to clear a deep lake – but only about 60 metres to find dry land. Elsewhere, the water flanks play zones – certainly asking players whether they want the reward of clearing them, but always offering an alternative, tacking route. And the fairways with attenuant ’mown rough’ zones are generous, the greens mostly largish and gently flowing. So, generally, my thinking just now is that if a reasonable player doesn’t try to overpower the challenges, a good score is easily achieved. Yes? I fear though that the big boys won’t like some things – the 525 metre Hole 17 for example is deliberately designed to be played in 3 shots, several avenues of play being provided for decisions right along the play of it. Only two exceptional, accurate blows would ever gain and keep the sanctuary of the green. Is this wrong, I ask myself, and have no answer yet. Should the elevated green, with its DAH pit, in front house more’stopping’ depth? That narrow approach strip left of that pit, just one approach alternative, but the logical one for the long-hitter – will it entice them? Too slender? Will they just lay up? Is the enticement enough, here on the second last hole of the competition?

On Hole 4 here – a long par 3 out onto a natural peninsula, catching (saving) bunkers right of the large green, slopes down to water left side, and immediately behind. Is the fairway approach wide enough for the main part of members, and will the strong player on the tee be too trepidatious to fly the ball deep into the green, when one unfortunate skip too far will find a steep bank down, or the water? It’s a truly tough hole, but is it at least fair? I worry about it, see, even though it’s beautiful to look at, and a 3-iron yesterday into only a slight breeze found sanctuary front left.

And here’s Australia’s longest par 4 at 470 metres plus, Hole 16, played from up high, the fairway limited widely by a pinnacle ridge, beyond which is precipitous nemesis. “I can see the green way down there on the flat, and if I can belt my drive past that middle plateau, narrowing, 280 metres away, hell it might be possible to have a hole-in-one on this monster!!” That sort of thinking will destroy a medal round, absolutely no doubt of it.

The BriefSo much to feel here, to look at, alone and happy, to wonder about for an architect whose simple brief was to make a strong, excellent course on difficult land, one without the impediment of surrounding housing, one which was completely different in character to the earlier St John course designed by Jack Nicklaus and his team, sculptured as it is through and past rows of cypress and other trees, many more trees being planted there as I write. There will be no new trees anywhere near play areas on my beloved floodplain – I see this strangely- contorted residual land where the scouring and retreat of the river over millennia has caused weird and complex humps and hollows – and I’ve possibly exaggerated them too much on Holes 2 and 17 – are the fairways here too heaving? This strange landscape cries our for low stuff, wild grasses with their seasonal yellows, mauves, greys, dark bushes back dropping dogleg corners and greens, miles away from reasonable play, sporadic mixed-metaphor plantings cladding hills and spilling down over crests, a slow, gently flowing golfscape framed in still waters.

You do your best, and the world waits to play what you have conceived and dragged out of the land, some all too eager to cavil, to criticize, but most dear golfers waiting to enjoy the varied and hopefully stimulating golf throughout the journey. So the worrying goes on.