Historic Greens an article we used to educate and sell the greens restoration program. Ten minutes from Dedham is The Country Club, a course that is famous for its small and well protected greens. We needed to talk about why larger Raynor greens were not going to be easier. The greens at DCPC had lost about 25% of their original size and the bunkers, even though recently renovated, were still far removed from the green surface.
Golfweek SuperNews Architectual Trends Golden Age architecture and conditioning is a special golf experience, as indicated in this article. DCPC is the real deal...we need to let everyone know what a gem Dedham was.
Future of Golf Excerpt You may have to print it out or manipulate the document to rotate this to read. Once again, looking to provide backup to a tree program and a green restoration program. This is from a great book by Geoff Shackelford called the Future of Golf, which should be read by everyone. It is available to purchase by clicking here and going to Mr. Shackleford's site. His running blog is the best golf news site on the web, so check that out while you are there.
Shackelford's Forward Tees article from Golfdom is here. Currently at Dedham, we are trying to not only add back tees but forward tees. What we didn't realize is the difficulty we were going to have in trying to get golfers to play from the correct tees in relationship to their skill. This year, we have re-rated the course and change the tee marker color in order to facilitate this.
Geoff Shackelford writes about the perfect scorecard.
Medaling with Design is an article about what stroke play has done to the game when most old courses were designed with match play in mind.
Lean and Mean is an article explaining the benefits of a links style management that also happens to be very sustainable. The superintendent's actions in the article were extreme, which I am not advocating, but his end goal and mine are the same. My approach just took three years, but hopefully no one noticed the conversion.
Golfweek reprint in GCSANE Newsletter This article editorializes on the role of the superintendent in creating a top 100 course.
Ron Whitten's article in Golf Digest talking about design trends in golf course architecture:
What I like best about the article is that architects are chasing what a course like Dedham already has and we have been trying to maintain the course in a way that showcases the the antique character of DCPC...here is the best quote of the article:
The latest fashion in golf design is rumpled, crumpled and frayed around the edges. The hottest courses look old and weathered, even though they are brand new.
With these courses, the assumption is Mother Nature provided some terrific topography that finally is being discovered for golf. Truth is, imaginative architects created most of these distressed-look courses on otherwise lackluster sites. To add character to each place, they dug down, piled up and then routed golf holes through the tumult, leaving the jagged peaks and steep slopes intact. They refused to smooth the rough edges, giving us not silk purses, but alligator bags.