Golf Course Architecture - Issue 62: October 2020

31 replace the grass with modern cultivars that could provide better surfaces. I was asked to create a plan for the club’s courses with the intention of replacing the grass on greens. What were your primary goals? During my work on the plan, it became apparent that recreating the character of the course was just as important as improving the surfaces. We came up with a proposal that took inspiration from the 1930s courses with flashed sand faces on the bunkers and redeveloping the green surrounds to look more like push-up greens. Not an easy task when most of the greens were surrounded by large broad mounds. Since the club has a nine-hole layout it was decided to carry out all the work on the 18-hole course in a single season. This was an ambitious goal, as the work included four new greens, 14 greens to be re-turfed, all new green surrounds, greenside bunkers, and a new irrigation system. Being in Stockholm, the growing season is quite restricted, and we would have to get all 45,000 square metres of turf laid before the end of October. To limit the impact on members, work did not start until the end of July which made it a furious time schedule for contractor Nelson & Vecchio. Having been fortunate with the weather and having a very large crew on site, N&V has been able to pull it off and we even expect to have all the turf down by the middle of October. That is no small achievement in only 10 weeks, especially considering the challenges Covid-19 has thrown at the project with delays to materials and the general travel restrictions for the crew. What will golfers notice most following the work? For the golfers, the change will be dramatic. They will experience a lot more variation around the greens as well as a visually much stronger course. It is amazing how it is possible to change the character of a hole while keeping the old green – this allows us to make such a dramatic change without constructing new greens which would have made the project too expensive. The new green surrounds have allowed us to generate interesting pin positions, which will make it possible to set the course up in new ways that will challenge the players to rethink their course strategy. Redeveloped green surrounds on the par-five seventh hole