Moving Heaven And Earth – Should Golf Course Architects Move As Much Or As Little Earth As Possible?

Pondering an interesting angle from which to view golf course architecture, I realised that for most of my many years of playing I have had a firmly-held belief that courses designed by nature are superior to those that have required excessive use of diggers. In general, as in most things apart from wine, I prefer subtlety to over-the-top enthusiasm, and so I have always had a soft spot for the likes of a Cleeve Hill or a Church Stretton, perhaps England’s most natural course, over say, just as an example and it’s still very enjoyable, The Brabazon Course at The Belfry.

Alongside this, built into Golf Monthly’s evaluation criteria for the course rankings, under Visual Appeal, we have always asked the question, “Is the course in keeping with its surroundings?” This is still very important, both from a rankings perspective and to me personally, but I think it’s worth challenging myself and asking whether one design approach is inherently better than the other? Should the architect keep things as natural and simple as possible, or should everything possible be done to make the best course conceivable?

So what are the reasons why some courses have graduated to greatness with minimum input while others have required every type of intervention under the sun? Perhaps the most obvious one is that if the club and its architect have been blessed with a brilliant topography, little has needed to change. Just look at the Old Course at St Andrews which was designed by nature and where the human input is its 112 bunkers and the greens.

Golf has been played over this rumpled tract of land for 600 years, and while there will be changes for the 2027 Open Championship including some substantial bunker work, this is largely being done to reinstate the original playing lines and challenge for the very best golfers. It will remain, despite everything, as natural as an Open venue can be.

It’s also worth remembering that many of our oldest and best courses were created before we had the machinery to make today’s seismic landscape changes. Take Royal North Devon at Westward Ho! which is about as…