Almanac Golf: Part 2 – Building a golf course: how not to

 

Part 2 Building a golf course – how not to

 

Later, when married with kids, as a management course exercise I re-designed the local golf course, not Royal Swamp I worked on, see Part 1, but the town course where I was later.

 

This course was pretty much fourteen rectangles with a tee box and and oiled green on each. Then four Par 3s, so-so in challenge and merit, and almost because they had to make the course par 72. It was 71.

 

The mowing was up and down, each two weeks, and the greens were raked, fluffed as a result, each week, circular. There are no bunkers. 14 holes have bunds (local term for low walls of compacted earth, all at 80 yards from the centre of the green) the width of the fairway so no pitch and run. You walk from the green, through a forest of trees and out of sight from where you putted last to the next tee box at the start of its own rectangle, a cleared area surrounded by a thick shroud of trees, seventeen of them, like a giants footprint imprint across the land. Unique?, Yes.

 

My exercise didn’t change anything too much. I drew the course accurately, on graph paper using measurements obtained with kid help, with two long tape measures and a 4 iron and a bucket of balls. Kid 1 was learner driving at this point, in a Fairlane, so the stop, start, reverse through the access ways and around the tee boxes was helping her.

 

I hit from the men’s tees and got the ball drop location, no run, because mine don’t too much, and measured to there, then hit again , and measured that drop location, measured to the green. I had my centre point for mowing, those two drop locations would be circular mowed areas to intice players to hit to and from them as targets to achieve. Cost me a couple, four, Fantas, twice,  and some pies.

 

Whilst golfing I hit a fade, a slice sometimes and the bad shot is a push and that combination of go, oops and bugger! kept me on 12 for years. It’s 30 or more years since I played combative golf but I chip around the big back yard most  days and play a 9 here regularly in the evening.

 

I drew the course to scale as I said and over laid with the measured points I had, and when it looked done, I measured, scaled then, the distances you had to hit to get to the centre of the green using the averages from a printed list in a magazine for a single figure, a 12,  an 18 handicapper on how far they hit their clubs. I used pencil and hatching to indicate where the landing points were and it looked quite efficient and workmanlike when finished, managementlike.

 

The management aspect came from the evidence gathering, the drawing, the estimating the cost(s) for mowing differently, the planning and scheduling the work, using one man, one machine and keeping the course functioning, during this ‘amendment’, assessing and getting permissions, a safety audit, an agreement with the committee about the finished amendments, an application to any relevant bodies who may be affected, including those in the running for funds that may be paid to us, and an assurance that the finished article would entice present, and future golfers to play golf there. You could be different, outrageous perhaps, as long as the place stayed a golf course

 

Presently,the tractor and  mower was the property of the Ag College and the operator worked for no cost to the club but diesel was purchased.  I drew out, removed the bunds on all holes that had them, 14. Four par 3s had trees removed from in front of the green, presently you hit over those trees to a blind pin, not happy making at all.

 

 

The par 3s were treacherous, a flat top on a pinnacle, no surrounds to catch an errant shot so I increased the diameter of the top of the pinnacle, like o out to O, and drew them elongated, pear like shaped  so that on line but over length shots would stay on the same level, I would hope, because the worst scores, eclectic, for me were those Par 3s and I went over and off them often, to mark a 4. Horrible.

 

On the par 5s, I drew in blue gums between the old growth trees on the boundary and closed over the fairway by five rows on the east or south, and came in 3 rows on the remainder with the area around the greens(oiled) narrowed some more. Blue gums are bush fly deterrers also, but wasn’t known to me then but came to light in a later discussion

 

I re-drew the course from my measurements and inserted par 3 tee boxes on the holes that would accept them, adjusted the landing spots and re-drew the mowing plan. It was this scheme and everything else that I showed to the committee, it wasn’t a quorum either and stressed that a copy of ‘ Re-design of Golf Course as  exercise 11 requirement’, my term for the master piece I had made would be made available to the club as a matter of interest and discussion. The par 3 course was an aside, a what would that look like thing. The par score of the course remained unchanged despite my fiddling.

 

The course presently, still, has two back to back par 5s, and two back to back par 3s, and I re-drew those areas to retain the first par 3 and  first par 5 but space them. Make one short, one not short par 4. The 18^th finishes down the hill from the clubhouse and near the first green, so that you walk up the  first or 9^th fairways after finishing and depending whether leaving your clubs in storage or going to the car park. I redrew that as a modification piece, twice, to finish near the club house as a par 4, or to a cross over fairway to a  green, also near the club house but as a par 5. Just a suggestion or two. It  has a par of 71, and remained a  71 if my suggestions were implemented, but they weren’t suggested. It wasn’t factual, it was a demonstration of my thinking, planning, and problem solving.

 

Two, of the three present at the meeting, were enthusiastic, not for adaptation and application, just that it was maybe the first time somebody had thought up something different. It wasn’t meant to be used, they could if they wanted to.

 

There was some resistance to my ‘not going to happen while I live and breathe’ suggestions. In effect I did the exercise to see for myself what might be done, it wasn’t worse in my estimation. The problem as I saw  it was how, or even why, the exercise contents were made public and then critiqued. It was never secret but it was never going to happen, not happen by my doing any way.

 

So it came up as a discussion in the town Club, at darts, at footy training, in the Council, at the railway, at the silo, at hockey, thank God the pool was closed, at the Police Station, at both tractor dealerships, but not from the pulpit, either of them.  I don’t like change was the common thread there. I could understand the Council wanting information, the Council applied for development grants annually and the requests included funding for sporting venues, access mostly, roads, and drainage. My uncle hit the course record there and now you want to change it. Plant trees, really, won’t work. Tell that to ‘Men of the Trees’ up that way.  Seriously I had done an exercise as a requirement for study for a certificate in management, a Commonwealth Government authored course, and it was assumed I was going to instigate the exercise recommendation amendments to the course. I wasn’t, and didn’t, nobody did anything different on it, and all went back to their beers after a bit, and talked about the weather. I got me certificate too, bewdy.

 

I was on the committee next year, so forgiven? Fancy wanting to pay for the tractor driver and the machine he rode in on, holy cow.

 

 

More from Pestwac (Tony Moffat) can be read Here.

 

 

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