Article published in Issue 17, July 2009 – Golf Course Architecture
(www.golfcoursearchitecture.net)
A sustainable approach to golf and the cultural landscape
Tim Lobb of Thomson Perrett & Lobb, the golf course design practice founded by five-time Open champion Peter Thomson, shares his ideas on how a correctly used natural landscape can transform a golf course design.
It’s an exciting time in any golf course architect’s life when you venture on to the site of a new golf course for the very first time and glimpse the topography and landscape that lies before you.
The creative juices always start flowing and lots of ideas begin to buzz around in the head – I guess it’s the same for anyone involved in ‘making things’, whether they be fashion designers, leading chefs or even artists.
For us, the starting point in the creative process begins with the cultural aspects of the area we are to work. What I mean by ‘cultural’ are the features and any flora or fauna that has naturally developed in the area over time.
Perhaps the best way to explain what I mean is to take a course my colleague, Ross Perrett previously designed, as an example. When he walked onto the site of Finna Golf Club in Indonesia he was greeted with something which, at first, looked like a huge obstacle to the development of the course, but in the end became a trademark for the property and a turning point in the design of golf courses in the region.
The natural landscape seen was rice paddy fields, which had been used by locals to grow rice and had become an important economic and cultural symbol for the area.
Golf blending into the rice paddies of Indonesia at Finna Golf
After much head-scratching and thought the conclusion was only one real option, and that was the design the golf course, incorporating the paddy fields into the layout of the holes. At this particular time – 15 years ago – this type of approach was rarely used in any golf course design, but now, looking back, it proved to be the most significant part of the course’s design and became its calling card over the following years.
This philosophy, working with the natural features of the area, rather than trying to work around them or, at worst, change them, has always been of primary importance to any design process that we start.
At the recently opened Carya Golf Club in Belek, Turkey, Ross Perrett, Peter Thomson and myself walked onto the site for our usual ‘what’s good and unique’ conversation and we quickly became aware of some key features that would become hugely significant in the development of the course.
Unlike most courses in Turkey that are situated around resorts and feature primarily parkland or resort style layouts, we were greeted with 10ha of dense heathland countryside (Erica manipuliflora) growing naturally on the lower end of the site, reminiscent of the great English courses like Sunningdale, The Berkshire or Swinley Forest.
It was immediately clear we were going to enhance this heathland landscape and attempt to create a course different to the norm by proliferating a beautiful natural landscape that already exists, like the paddy fields of Indonesia, the heather of Carya became the course’s signature landscape feature.
To enhance this naturally growing heathland we actually propagated heather sprigs from on site in eight greenhouses, creating up to half a million cuttings plants which were planted across the course. This foundation work will in time perpetuate and enhance the sustainability and look of the golf course for years to come.
One of the eight onsite poly tunnels set up to propogate cuttings from the indigenous heather stock at Carya Golf Club
However, one of the biggest challenges in any golf course design project is to get a grasp of the scale of the project when making decisions. It’s not like you are trying to design a garden, golf courses are huge developments that require sustainable features with an over-riding theme that can live on during its lifetime.
Desert designs bring with them a different challenge but are always very rich in features that link in with the area’s culture. Our New Giza development in Egypt must be one of the most culturally rich environments on the planet, as you can actually see the Pyramids from our site!
During the initial stages of this project we visited the Professor of Botany at Cairo University to develop a list of plants we could use during the construction that were indigenous to the area. It’s important to plant things which you know are, a) going to look ‘right’ in the landscape and b) grow in the weather and soil conditions of the region.
It may sound obvious but you would be amazed how many conversations you can have with potential developers who have an idea to develop a course and you immediately know their vision is almost impossible to achieve due to the limitations put on you by Mother Nature. For that reason, you won’t find many lush parkland layouts in Dubai and you won’t find many desert designs in central Europe.
When it comes to golf course architecture so many people forget about the overall theme to the course, marrying traditions of the area with the challenges of each hole. A golf course is a living organism and the whole package including the cultural landscape must be considered in the design process.
When we think of the great golf courses of the world we don’t just think about the individual tees or greens that we play on. We think about the landscape that they sit in and how the indigenous/cultural landscape effortlessly blends into the background as if the golf course has been there forever. That in essence is the key to creating a golf course that has it all.
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