The bane of a golf course designers life is surely the constant repetition of ‘Excuse me, but what makes a perfect golf course?’ It’s simple really, and it is the ground on which the golf course has been built upon.
The recipe for a tasty golf course is a couple of ponds to act as water hazards, fluctuation in terrain, so that it is not flat all of the time, room for fairways, some rough ground to provide a challenge, and some nice deep bunkers. If you hear someone say that a golf course should not have bunkers then you should tell them to never discuss golf again.
If a golf course is to be good then each hole has to have an individual feel to it. If golf courses were all straight, and every single hole was the same length then the sport would really be lacking something. A good golf course has dog legs and various obstacles dotted around to offer plenty of variety.
Depending on just how much fluctuation there is in the courses hills, there may well be a fair few elevated tees, which are great because they can add yards and yards to a drive.
The various folk that have jobs on golf courses have an important role to play in making sure that a golf course is good. Really good people are often brought in for the purpose of keeping fairways smooth, and cropping greens to their potential. To the individual playing the game, such maintenance is the difference between a green being good and a green being bad. This is the case with golf worldwide.
To elaborate on greens, a factor that is instrumental in making a course good, is the grass that has been used for its greens. Courses that are brilliant use bent grass. Bent grass is amazing because it has been genetically engineered to stop the ball from rolling off the green. Another grass that is alright but not as good, is the Bermuda grass that courses use, which does not have the same quality of keeping the ball on the green. Another difference is that bent grass grows on softer soil, meaning deeper divots.
The overall attitude of the people that work to run the facilities of a golf course, such as the clubhouse, goes a long way to ensuring that the golfers have a good time. If the staff are rude, then it can really put golfers off their game, and the massive concentration that is needed to play a round is completely lost. There is nothing worse than being mistreated by some self aggrandising prig in a blazer that manages the clubhouse.
The paths that are meant for golf carts have to me maintained adequately. If they are not then this forces players to use the fairways. All that weight really takes its toll on the fairways and can cause undue wear and tear on the fairways.
There is nothing worse than playing golf on a course that has really bad terrain. A lot of courses are built on ground that is stony. This causes errant shots, and can also damage clubs. Golf clubs are not cheap, and the irons come as part of a set, so when one is damaged, it can feel like the whole set is damaged. Not everyone that plays golf is a professional that can just contact their manufacturer and get a new set of clubs for free, so if a golf course is built on bad terrain then the chances are it has a pretty bad reputation.
This article is written by Jonathan L Walker, on behalf of The Algarve Golf Course Guide, a specialist website covering all aspects of Algarve Golf , including the surrounding hotels and restaurants
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