How to build a golf course

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Would you like to build a golf course……. In 1923 ??? 2023-24. Over the past year or so, we have been briefed about the plans to rebuild some aspects of our course in the coming years. Plans that will change the length and alignment of a few holes, change the design of all the greens and surrounds, including the bunkers, and change some of the tees. And the final result will be a course of similar length and par rating to our current course, but with some holes quite different and hence we will have a different course from the one we have become so familiar with. But this narrative is not about the future, but a look back to the early years, trying to visualise just what had to be done to produce the course which has effectively been the same since 1933. I hope it might help us understand the challenges which were so effectively overcome and which now lie hidden from our casual gaze. 1923. We can try to visualise the first 9 hole course set up in the few months after the club secured the land and was able to start building a golf course. E J Hyde reports in his book “The History of Pennant Hills Golf Club” “The only preparation for play was to run a lawn mower over those places selected for greens without any attempt to build up or improve them, and they provided some weird putting surfaces.” I expect that the standard putt was a ‘hit and hope’ putt in those earliest months. Almost certainly the tees were also a flatish place similarly chosen and mown. No work was put into making these temporary tees and greens properly as the real focus was on making an 18 hole course.


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