People often ask me, what makes this a Links style course? It’s easy to point to the lack of trees, the native fescue grasses that border the holes, and the rolly-polly uneven lies in the fairway. Back in the day, we even had the sod wall bunkers. That has proved to be idiotic due to our climate, but it was cool for awhile.
Almost a half million rounds played here since inception and no one has ever mentioned one of the most obvious Links characteristics, that you basically don’t see anywhere around here….the greens built at same grade as the fairways so a ball can easily be rolled up.
Real Links golf is built on sandy sites. American golf over the last 200 years is often built on very poor soils. Early American architects figured out very quickly, if you are going to drain an American green in poor soils, you better get that thing up in the air. Look around at every course around here, they are almost all “push-up” greens, and that was solely to get the water off. Leave the green at ground level; health of grass and playability would be a huge struggle.
It’s a feature that really excites me because it is so different. Our soils are just as poor, so it takes some special engineering to be able to pull it off, and I wish I could get the approaches playing a little faster to make the whole package work better. As you know you have seen us aggressively working on firming up those approaches, and one day we will get there. Next time you are playing, look at all the greens at grade. Compare those to pictures of the old links courses, you’ll see one of our most interesting attributes.
Nick : I thought a Links course was built on land that “linked” the town to the sea , usually poor soil and land that was not much good for anything else. Example St Andrews. Hence a Links course.
I think that was an attempt to zing me. I never said we were a Links course, I said we had a Links style golf course. And we had Links style characteristics. Your not wrong in what you said, I just don’t know what it adds. I was simply talking about greens that are at grade.