GOLF
COURSE MASTER PLAN DISCUSSION, TACONIC GOLF CLUB,
The following report is part of the golf course master plan for the Taconic Golf Club, a private club with an 18 hole, Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek designed golf course. This master plan will focus on all of the golf related facilities of the club, and will make specific recommendations for the improvement and restoration of those facilities. Wherever possible, it will be the recommendation of this plan to follow the concepts, principles, and designs of Stiles and Van Kleek in making any changes to the course.
This portion of the golf course master plan will be a discussion of the general design features of the golf course. This section will focus on the underlying philosophies that will guide us for making our specific recommendations. Section Two will be comprised of hole by hole recommendations and notes. These recommendations will be specific to the golf course and will be found in a booklet-containing hole by hole diagrams.
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY –
As mentioned above, the name of Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek is going to
play a major role in our discussion of all aspects of the golf facilities at
Taconic Golf Club. In the pantheon of golden age golf course architects, these
two gentlemen are not immediately at the forefront. However, it does not mean that they did not
create some wonderful golf courses. Both men were trained in landscape
architecture and in 1924 they formed a partnership that dealt with the design
of golf courses and their surrounding subdivisions, as well as more traditional
landscape architectural pursuits. They
had offices in
Stiles and Van Kleek went their
separate ways in the middle of the Depression, with both continuing to design a
limited number of courses after their separation. The roster of Stiles and Van Kleek golf
courses includes Thorny Lea Golf Club in
COURSE LAYOUT – The routing or layout of the Taconic Golf Club golf course is perhaps the strongest feature of the design. The golf course perfectly traverses the rolling terrain, and the diversity of the layout is inherent in each shot played. Stiles and Van Kleek utilized the natural ground to create the shot values that we find on the golf course. They also found the landforms that would lend themselves to the holes and shot values that constitute their golf course. The beauty of the relationships between these features is one of the lasting impressions of golf at Taconic. Without a solid skeleton or framework, a golf course can never achieve greatness. Taconic Golf Club is doubly blessed in the fact that the club possesses a beautiful piece of ground, and a golf course that takes every advantage of the natural terrain.
Another most important feature inherent in the layout of any golf course is the design balance of the golf holes. Design balance can be summed up as having variety in the length, angle, and makeup of the golf holes. While length is a great way to promote variety and design balance, it is not the only way. Green size and bunker placement also plays a large role in the overall design balance of the course. Stiles and Van Kleek provided great variety in these areas. There are some very small greens on the course, as well as some larger ones. In the original design, the bunkering was strong and varied in its location, an aspect of the golf course that the master plan will clearly embrace. One of the final elements of design balance can be summed up in the angles of play on the golf holes. Do all of the holes dogleg in the same direction? Is out of bounds always on the same side of the hole? The answer can definitively be stated as no when it comes to the layout at Taconic, where variety is a key component of the design.
GREENS – While a good layout is the backbone of any golf course, good greens can make a course and outstanding greens can be a link to greatness. Taconic Golf Club has outstanding greens! These greens possess all of the bold undulations and imagination that mark greens built by classic golf course architects, Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek. As with many courses of this vintage, the greens are the true defense of the Taconic golf course. The slopes in these greens are severe by modern maintenance standards, however, they are not so severe as to warrant making major changes to their contours. Part of the golf experience at Taconic is the fear of being in the wrong position on these greens. Very often that position is above the pin staring at a sharp downhill putt. It is a great characteristic of this course that players need to pay attention to the location of their approach shot and their “leave”. This level of accuracy helps to battle the notion that the golf course is “too short” for the modern game. Try leaving a putt “too short” from above the hole on these greens and the modern game will have to take a bow to the Taconic greens.
We must do everything we can to preserve and protect the slope in these putting greens. In large part, the only changes we are proposing is to expand and extend all of these greens back out to their original size and configuration. Large cupping areas, as well as strategic slopes have been lost and removed from the strategy of the golf course. Most of the greens will benefit greatly from the expansions due to the fact that some of them have severe slopes that make it impossible to locate holes in these areas. The expansion of the greens will help to soften some of these strong slopes, create interesting hole locations, and allow for recovery shots to be played. In particular the ability to land the ball short of the steep slopes, and still be on the putting surface will have a great impact on the green complexes. One other area of work will occur on the fronts of most of the greens where a top dressing “lip” has developed. This lip forms when the topdressing is swept off the front of the green and begins to build up just off the front or side of the green. This lip makes the front of the green steeper and adversely affects the ground game aspect of the approach. Removing this lip will greatly improve the ability to run the ball on to the front of the green.
We have heard the argument that
smaller greens make a tougher golf course, and that we would be making the
course easier by reclaiming the greens.
However, we feel very strongly that the golf course will maintain its
challenge and perhaps have it enhanced by reclaiming some edge pin positions. The most difficult pins to access by a golfer
exist on the edges of greens. Due to
sharper angles and a closer proximity to bunkers, these pins call for more
accurate shots. Previously these pin
positions had been lost due to the shrinking of the greens. By reclaiming the greens we have resurrected
these pin positions, thereby restoring a key element of the original design of
the golf course.
BUNKERS – While the greens on the golf course are arguably the most important design feature, it is clear that the bunkers are the most important visual feature on most golf courses. Perhaps it is the contrast between green grass and white sand, or the shadows created by the bunkers in early or late lighting conditions. For whatever reason, the proper bunkering of a course adds dramatically to the overall beauty, character and playability of any golf course.
In studying the original plans and aerial photos of the Taconic Golf Club golf course, it is very clear that Stiles and Van Kleek did not intend to let this boldness stop on the greens. The golf course possesses dramatic bunker complexes, and they serve to challenge the golfer in a variety of ways. While focusing on the bunkers of any golf course, two distinct characteristics come forward. The first is the location of the bunkers, and their role as the hazard on any particular golf hole. Secondly, the style and makeup of the bunkers is a main consideration in any restoration effort at a golf club.
The existing location of the bunkers on an old golf course deserves a special level of scrutiny. Due to the fact that the game and the implements have changed since the golf course was designed, we must focus on the proper level of playability and challenge for the modern game. One of the main weaknesses of the Taconic course is the lack of effective fairway bunkering. For whatever reason, many of the fairway bunkers on the original course were removed over a period of years. It is our recommendation that many of these bunkers be restored to the course in locations that are appropriate for the modern game of golf. By using the bunker schemes as devised by Stiles and Van Kleek in modern locations, we can restore some of the strategic challenge and interest from the tee to the golf course. The locations of these bunker complexes will respond to the individual landscapes and challenges inherent in each hole at Taconic. They will provide options and create varied angles of attack that are appropriate for the green complexes that serve as the finish for these holes. The location of these bunkers will also serve to challenge the longer hitter as they will be placed in spots that will be in line with the prodigious lengths that golfers hit the ball today. There will also be several bunkers on the golf course that are visual in nature, and although they may have little impact on the play of a good golfer, they are still very much a part of the golf course. They need to be restored to complement the entire vision that Stiles and Van Kleek had for the golf course. These bunkers are a bastion of an era gone by, and their somewhat quirky inclusion into this golf course master plan will link this course to the era in which it was designed. It is our opinion that some of the most fascinating and interesting golf courses in the world have features, which may be considered antiques, it is a part of their fabric and it lends itself to their greatness.
The look and feel of the bunkers is another issue, and it may be the issue that will provide the greatest change to the golf course during our restoration. Stiles and Van Kleek were very consistent in the look and feel of their bunkers, and they included sand faces that made the bunkers very visually appealing. The current bunkers have been edged out of shape over a long period of time, which is typical of a course of this age. The style of the new bunkers will have bolder shapes yet they will not be completely foreign to the current look of the bunkers. The scale of the bunkers is consistent with the original intent, and the grass faces will be pulled a bit lower on the face to compensate for the edging that has occurred. However, there will still be plenty of sand in view from all angles.
FAIRWAYS – With respect to the contouring of the fairways, we are referring to the shapes of the fairways as opposed to the topographical contours of the holes. The shapes of the fairways are quite important to the visual and playable aspects of the golf course. We are firm believers that fairways should be wider and that they should have long flowing lines, as opposed to wiggly lines that jump all over the property. Wide fairways are indeed a characteristic of the original designs of older courses. Unfortunately most of these courses have narrowed their fairways due to the encroachment of the maturing tree lines. In the original state, the trees were not mature enough to encroach on the fairways (if the trees existed at all), the fairways were mowed with wide gang mowers, and the equipment and state of the game required a more generous landing area for golfers. The result of all of these factors led to wider fairways, an idea that we definitely embrace.
The aerial photograph shows that the fairways were all very simply shaped, and that they relied on long flowing curves as opposed to sharp angles and turns. Fairway contours should act as part of the background of the golf course. They should serve to accentuate the topography of the golf course as well as help to define the fairway hazards on the hole. They should never call attention to themselves, but rather act as an underlying layer of the tapestry that makes up a golf course. Good fairway contouring should go relatively unnoticed, whereas poor fairway contouring is often blatant in calling attention to itself while detracting from the more prominent features of the golf course and the property.
TEES – The teeing grounds at Taconic Golf Club are all in relatively good repair, and for the most part they are exactly in a position where Stiles and Van Kleek originally set them. As with most every golf course we work on, it is the back tees and the forward tees that need the most attention. Golf clubs are definitely run by the majority of members and the majority of golfers play from the middle tees. As a result, these tees are very often in the best shape and the best location due to the influence of the members. However, the back and forward tees are often overlooked. It is our firm belief that the back and forward tees are every bit as important as the middle tees and they should receive equal treatment in the evaluation of any golf course. A golf course is made up of components and part of that component system includes three sets of tees. Better players should not be penalized because they are good, and women should not be penalized because of their gender. All should have equal right to play the golf course from their markers as the majority does from the middle. As a result the majority of the recommendations will be to add length where available and prudent to accommodate recent changes in technology, and to correctly place the forward tees so that the hole will play properly with respect to length and angle of play.
Length is indeed important in judging the modern golf course. At Taconic Golf Club, the golf course is indeed a great length for a classic course from the back tees. We do not believe that a 7000 yard golf course is a pre-requisite for having a great golf course. In fact just the opposite is true in our opinion. To reach 7000 yards most of your short par 4 holes and short par 3 holes have to be abandoned in favor of more yardage. The resultant lack of variety and character detracts greatly from any standard of greatness that we have for a golf course. We believe that the character of the topography, and the devilish nature of the greens makes this course play with a great deal of variety and character. Attempting to lengthen the course to reach some mythical number should not be a major goal of this golf course master plan.
ROUGH – It has never been, nor will it ever be, our policy to dictate to a club how high they should maintain their rough. This is definitely a club decision based on the desires of the members, the input of the green committee, and ultimately the skill of the superintendent. We do however, believe that rough is indeed meant to be part of a golf course, and it should serve to act as some form of penalty for missing a green or fairway. If a player is most often not penalized for being in the rough, then why maintain fairway at all. If there is no advantage gained by being in the fairway over the rough, then the strategy of the game has suffered dramatically.
The master plan also calls for
the creation of areas of native rough or fescue. These areas have been purposefully kept in
areas where a reasonable golf shot should not venture. It is not the intention of these areas to be
a key part of the play of the course.
Rather they are to offer a contrast in texture and color to the rest of
the golf course. These areas will be
meticulously prepared so as to offer a true version of native
rough/fescue. Most clubs allow the
existing grass to simply grow longer and then call it fescue. This results in a matted, thick, mess because
the grass species are usually not conducive to this type of maintenance. Our plan will kill off all of the existing
grass and plant with fine fescue and native species in a seeding rate that is
lighter then recommended for the soil types at Taconic. This will produce areas of grass that will be
thin and wispy, where a player can go in and find a ball and advance it with an
iron. The look of these areas will add
greatly to the character of the course and further establish the traditional
look and feel of the golf course.
TREES – Trees are without question, the most controversial aspect to be discussed during the formation of any golf course master plan. The main reason for this is that trees are an emotional and somewhat romantic topic, and members seldom view them in an objective or practical manner. Unfortunately for golf course architects, in order to do our job properly, we have to view them in a practical manner. This often leads to making unpopular recommendations when it comes to tree removal. However, we do have to make these recommendations, and although they may spark some short-term controversy, in the long run the golf course greatly benefits from these recommendations.
It is our job during the preparation of a golf course master plan to review the trees that have grown, or been planted on the golf course and to evaluate them based on five criteria: history, safety, playability, aesthetics, and agronomics. We must judge each individual tree and its contribution to these five criteria, and make an assessment as to whether each tree contributes in a positive or negative fashion on the golf course. The first criterion is history, or what were the origins of the tree planting on the property. When Stiles and Van Kleek first visited the property it was primarily open ground with a golf course already on part of the site. There were stands of mature woodlands on several parts of the course, which would correspond with the surrounding landscape. The major tree planting efforts came long after Stiles and Van Kleek had completed their masterpiece. With the notion that they designed on an open site and embraced it, we should be respectful of the history of the course without attempting to completely replicate it, which would not be practical.
We have already explored the history of the tree planting on the original design, so let us now focus on the second topic, safety. Safety is often the most quoted reason for why a tree has been placed in a certain location. While trees can act as important screens when used in the proper context, they are not always a safer option than the overall absence of trees in a given situation. This is certainly true when a tree blocks the view of an adjoining golf hole. In this instance, it is quite easy for an unsuspecting golfer to be hit by an errant shot from a player who cannot see them. It is certainly safer to have a line of vision on a golf shot and its potential landing area, no matter how wayward, than to hit blindly over a row of trees. Safety on a golf course impacts all golfers, applying also to the golfer who has played the shot. Danger to oneself can occur from shots that ricochet off of trees and come back and hit a golfer who has struck the shot, or a playing partner. I am sure that every golfer who reads this master plan will have been in a position where they think they can squeeze a shot through an opening in the trees, only to fall back on the swing because they are afraid that the ball will come back and hit them in the face. These are just two examples of the negative safety impacts that trees can have on a golf course. While it is true that more often than not, trees used in the right context can have a positive impact on the safety of a golf course, negative impacts can arise particularly in regard to reduced visibility.
The playability question is often the second most used response as to why trees are planted on a certain golf hole. “The hole plays too easily, we need to tighten it up.” These tightening committees have taken the role of architect into their own hands, and have more often than not undone some aspect of the original architect’s design. When architects like Stiles and Van Kleek stepped on to a piece of property, they had a set of strategies, guidelines, and options in mind while laying out the golf course. Through the positioning of bunkers, the angling of greens, the use of existing trees, the slope of the fairway, or the positioning of tees, the architect laid out the golf course to be a series of options and challenges built around these features. What occurs over the years is that well-intentioned committees plant trees that slowly encroach upon these features and they eventually take away the options that the original architect had intended. These committees take holes that have countless ways to play them, and they constrict them so that only one option remains, and that is to hit the ball in the fairway, or be forced to play a shot from behind a tree. That style of play is not at all strategic but rather it is penal architecture, where all of the options are removed and the golfer is severely penalized for hitting an off line golf shot. This tightening of the golf course takes away so many wonderful opportunities for recovery. We believe that skill and luck should be the methods used to overcome any golf course design, and we want the golfer to be able to demonstrate his or her skills to recover from trouble, to the best of their ability. Trees are clearly penal in nature in that they do not differentiate between good and bad players in the ability to recover from a poor shot. Trees require both classes of golfers to play similar shots to return to play, such as chipping out sideways to the fairway. Great golf courses allow golfers to try and use their skill to recover from difficult situations, and penalize more subtly through angles and hazard locations. While opening up the golf course will increase the enjoyment and playability of the golf course for the members, we do feel that there are several key trees on the golf course that lend a positive influence to the playability of the course. These trees have been noted in the hole by hole diagrams, and they should be preserved and protected. More often than not, trees are planted on a hole to cover up what is perceived as a weakness in the design of the hole. At too many courses, the holes have been designed poorly, and the members feel as if they must hide the flaws by covering them up with trees. At Taconic Golf Club, just the opposite is true. Your golf course is so well designed and so carefully laid out that the removal of trees will only sharpen the focus on the design of the golf course. In so doing, all of the strategies, options, and punishments that exist simply in the layout will be more clearly revealed.
The aesthetic question is indeed a very subjective one, in that we are sure that someone will find beauty in even the most gnarled and diseased tree. However, we believe that most people will find that large, mature trees are more aesthetically pleasing than smaller, more immature trees. At Taconic Golf Club, most of the mature specimen trees have become lost in the clutter of the many new trees planted on the golf course. This clutter detracts from the mature trees, and it is our belief that the mature trees should be highlighted rather than hidden. If trees are to be planted on the golf course in the future, they should be planted in a random manner, as opposed to a structured appearance. Trees naturally grow in clumps or groves, as opposed to picket fence lines. They should be set back from all features of the golf course, so that when they are mature, they do not infringe on the play of the hole, or block a line of play to the hole. Tree planting on a golf course needs to be done with the future in mind, and it is difficult to be patient enough to be able to forecast how a tree will impact play 15-20 years from now. The biggest mistakes made in tree plantings on golf courses fail to adhere to the above rules. If common sense, patience, and a feel for the natural arrangement of trees is followed, then the tree plantings on a golf course can add to the beauty of the course as opposed to detracting from it.
The aesthetic nature of tree
plantings does not only deal with the look of the individual tree. It also deals greatly with the view of the
surrounding landscape, and the vistas through the golf course. By planting trees heavily on a golf course,
the natural vistas that were part of the original design of the golf course
will be crowded out and covered up. You
are blessed with one of the most spectacular vistas in all of golf, with views
of the mountains and the
The final and easiest argument to make against trees on the golf course is from an agronomic standpoint. Simply put, trees have no agronomic benefit to the turfgrass on the golf course. They create shade, steal moisture, and out-compete turfgrass for the necessities of life. Members of a club of this stature will necessarily demand that the golf course conditions be maintained at a certain standard. Achieving this standard will only be aided by the removal of trees, while the failure to do so has been the downfall of conditions at nearly every club in existence. As a result, we must make the determination that this game is played on grass, and we must make every effort to maintain this turf properly, even at the risk of losing trees.
Based on these observations, we will be recommending that trees be removed from the golf course, in order to provide a benefit to each of these categories. There will be difficult decisions made on tree removal, and we hope that the membership can make these decisions based on an objective state of mind and with an eye towards the history of this fine design.
CART PATHS – While we even hate to see golf cart paths on the golf course, we reluctantly accept the fact that golf carts are part of the Americanized version of golf, and that we must make adequate provisions for their use. For the most part, Taconic Golf Club has preserved the golf course, and resisted the temptation to scar it with asphalt. We applaud the membership on this point, and hope that we can work with the members to improve what little cart paths there are on the course. We are hoping to remove some of the excess cart paths from the course. In areas where we feel that we can remove cart paths and still preserve cart flow we will strive to do so. These paths are often ones of convenience, and we feel that it is already a convenience for most golfers to be riding in a cart, so that it will not create any harm by making them walk or ride a bit farther. We feel that the gains in visual pleasure will more than offset a few extra steps on the course.
DRAINAGE - All golf courses rely
on proper infrastructure to help them be maintained properly. Whether it is drainage, or irrigation these
structures are necessary to keeping the golf courses alive and playable. However, these are not the part of the master
plan that the members reflect on, or if done properly, notice. The drainage infrastructure at Taconic is in
need of being overhauled. The large
trunk lines that run through the course are old and are beginning to or have
failed. The master plan will provide
funds to replace these large lines that run from the pond on 18 up to the 13th
hole and spread out into all of the holes that it passes through. We will also be installing smaller drain
lines in low lying areas, as well as curtain drains along some of the
hillsides. This
installation of drainage while not one of the more sexy items in the golf
course master plan will be very helpful in keeping the course in good shape and
open during the wet periods of the year.
WATER FEATURES – The primary water feature on the golf course is the pond fronting the 18th tee. The master plan calls for dredging this pond to help to expand the storage capacity for irrigation. The other creeks that meander through the course are to be maintained in a more aggressive fashion. By this it means that they will be allowed to look natural while not looking unkempt or truly wild. The stream on the 4th hole will be greatly improved with the removal of the willows so that the grass can be trimmed when needed.