Architecture Summit Celebrates Sand Hills & Restorations

Bradley Klein reports on Golfweek's 2018 gathering of panelists and while no comparison to those kidnapping video webcasts fed over the Conde Nast servers, the gathering drew Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, Kyle Phillips, David McLay Kidd and others to talk design, restoration and other topics for the assembled voters.

Klein says the goal was "to assess an entire era, one characterized by a return to classic-era, ground-game basics."

At an opening session, architects Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, David McLay Kidd and Kyle Phillips drew inspiration from the landmark, low-impact, naturalized design of Sand Hills in Mullen, Neb., the 1995 design by Coore and Crenshaw that all but launched the back-to-basics design movement.

There was also this on the restoration side, making me even more eager to see Inverness again:

Designer Andrew Green talked about a very different restoration path taken at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. Donald Ross’ 1919 design was highly studied after holding U.S. Opens in 1920 and 1931 – during which time its holes were extremely well documented and photographed. Green was brought in to fix some bunkers, but the project grew in scope thanks to the availability of adjoining land on which to build some retro-holes.

“For a club of that age to have extra property is unheard of,” Green said. The result, undertaken in 2017 without ever closing the existing 18-hole course, was to undo four ill-fitting modernist holes and eliminate them while restoring some of the old features and allowing the terrain to come through again. Green called it “what Mother Nature created and Donald Ross revealed.”

Comments

[FC]

Design history? $300 to $500 green fees are all that's needed.

[Tom Morris]

If you don't understand GCA history how can you understand Holes like the Redan or Road Hole on TOC?

Through understanding we have the capacity to learn or we keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, example much of the designs we have seen over the last 50 years.

[LA John]

Tangential: any news on what is going to happen with Sharp Park GC in San Francisco?

Also, any rumors out there about what could happen to Marshallia GC at Lompoc? Neat track through the trees, dunes, and fog, but needs recycled water and a freshen up.