To be clear, the point of this article is not to take a swing at Royal New Kent or the like. The
owners and management have done everything they can to stay afloat, and I applaud their
ongoing efforts. Nor is it to diminish the work of famed modern architects like Pete Dye and
Tom Faxio, who have designed some of the world’s best golf courses. Rather, this is one of
countless examples of how modern architecture has contributed to the rapid decline of the
game of golf, and why the early 1900’s are still referred to as the “Golden Age of Archtecture”.
As one example, let’s look at the year 1924, the year that Willie Park, Jr. designed
the present layout of New Haven Country Club in Hamden, Connecticut. Few, if any of you
reading this article were alive in 1924, much
less remember the culture back then. In 1924,
the first flight around the world was completed
in 175 days, the first Model-T car was being
mass-produced, and prohibition of alcoholic
beverages was in full swing. Color photos were
nearly impossible to come by, and movies were
without sound. In the age of iPhones and supercomputerrs, these are times with which we are
not familiar!
Like the Model-T, golf courses were
designed for practical reasons. They weren’t
meant to be flashy or dramatic, but rather, a
playing field in which they could enjoy a simple
game. Construction of a golf course in 1924
was a tall task for any architect. There were no
flyovers or land survey’s, and as Park proclaimed,
“the holes have to be found”. To the right is a
picture of the construction of the 11th hole at
New Haven Country Club, where a series of rail
tracks were used to carry dirt up and down the
hill. The hole, a dogleg left par-4, winds along
Lake Whitney and while it is the hardest hole on
the course at nearly 430-yards, it offers numerous options for golfers of all abilities.
Another example is the 3rd hole at the Course at Yale, pictured on the cover. For those
who have not had the pleasure to play Yale, the 3rd hole is shaped against the side of the
hill, with a generous fairway carved between the mound and the water. The approach shot
is a semi-blind shot over the crest of the hill to a large green set into the hill. Where modern
architects would have flattened the hill, designer Seth Reynor used the hill as an opportunity to
present a unique approach. Any
A golf architect must approach each bit of country with
properly executed shot over the
an absolutely open mind, with no preconceived ideas of what he hill will bounce right and feed to
is going to lay out, the holes have to be found, and the land in its the middle of the large green area,
and the fairway winds around the
natual state used to its best advantage.
bottom of the hill for those who
- Willie Park, Jr. don’t wish to traverse it.
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