Golf Course Architecture - Issue 61, July 2020

1 Golf for the masses O ver the years GCA has profiled many transformational golf projects, where a visionary architect has taken a golf course that was basically failing and, by making it better, and crucially more fun, to play, has turned it round. Two frequently cited examples are Sweetens Cove in Tennessee by Rob Collins and Tad King and the revitalisation of the Winter Park muni in Orlando by Riley Johns and Keith Rhebb. These projects demonstrate an understanding that good golf architecture lies at the heart of successful golf businesses: make a course that people really want to play, and the battle is mostly won. While undoubtedly triumphs, these projects were not socially revolutionary. Winter Park is in the most affluent suburb of Orlando, and Sweetens Cove – perhaps the closest to a true Everyman project – has (finally) prospered as an affordable daily fee course because of huge attention from both social and mainstream media. I don’t believe that golf has to be upmarket to be either good or successful. The small towns of Scotland, where every man and his dog plays golf and the game is deeply embedded in the community, are the example I would like to see propagated around the world. Why couldn’t a run-down muni in a down-at-heel part of a large American city be rebuilt, not for millions and millions of dollars by anonymous architects masquerading as a ‘signature’ Tour player, but by one or more of the breed of exciting golf designers now at work? And the result used to bring golf to a truly new and broad-based audience? As regular GCA contributor Vaughn Halyard put it: “It is essential to empower the surrounding community with participation in the equity and wealth created by any such efforts. Much urban blight exists because of historical redlining and financial discrimination. The risk of gentrification from such efforts is high and must be addressed. Building a gold mine in ghetto while preserving the poverty should be antithetical to the new American way.” Municipal golf brought the game to the masses: now I’d like to see architects bring the best of golf to those same people. Is this a pipedream? Maybe, but I firmly believe it could work given a chance. WELCOME ADAM LAWRENCE